Query on Tax treatment of Maternity Benefit

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o2bwise

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My wife works in the public sector and while on maternity leave her employer receives her Maternity Benefit payment directly and continues to pay her regular weekly wage. She is therefore paying Income Tax, USC and Pension related deduction on the Maternity Benefit portion of her pay. Will she be entitled to a refund of the Income Tax, USC and PRD that has been taken on the Maternity benefit amount?
 
It depends on her contract.
There is no legal entitlement to Maternity Pay.

It sounds like her maternity pay is structured to give her the same net pay.

She is not paying tax on the maternity benefit, she is getting less gross pay.

She should check her contract and look closely at her payslips.

At the end of the year, she should request a balancing statement from Revenue in case she has overpaid.
 
As the OP states that she works in the public service and therefore has the entitlement in her contract to maternity pay.

Assuming that she is also paying class A PRSI she also has an entitlement to SW maternity which is not taxable.

The combination of her maternity pay from her job and SW maternity Benefit should together leave her on full pay but only the "top up" portion from her employer should be taxed
 
Thanks for the replies!

Yes, she pays CLASS A PRSI. Seems from her payslips that her Gross has remained the same when on Maternity, which is ok - but there's no mention on the payslip that this Gross amount includes Maternity Benefit payment, so all of the deductions (USC, PRD, PAYE) have remained the same! Will have to chase up that Balancing Statement at the end of the year, as it looks like she might be overpaying.

Will she get the Pension Related Deduction that was taken on the Maternity Benefit portion refunded from Employer or Revenue?
 
got this refund about 9 years ago, working in Civil service. My HR unit told me I was hallucinating at first and reluctantly gave me a letter that confirmed that they had paid me my salary as normal without allowing for the non taxable element that related to the MB component of it. With this letter & one from DSW confirming the amount paid in MB I got a refund from Revenue - I submitted it with MED expenses form and it was a nice surprise. Getting the PRSI refund took months and was not as much as the tax.

Since then my HR have moved to processing this refund as part of overall salary admin but this may not extend to the wider public service, I don't know.

From the sounds of it, if her gross is the same then the refund is due on the PAYE aspect anyway. Her PRD may be subject to different rules, she may need to chase that up. I know she may prefer not to deal with the HR crew while off on ML but I always find the Dept Finance good to answer these type of questions if you ring there, they will know the score on the PRD
 
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