Mileage claim for a director on maternity leave

Dawny

My client is on maternity leave with her main employer. She is also a director of a limited company. My question is, can she claim for mileage from the limited company whilst on maternity leave?

Any ideas would be really appreciated!

deanshepherd

I don't see why not, providing she doesn't breach any rules for working whilst on maternity leave.

She could even have claimed maternity leave from both employments simultaneously.

payrollpro

Dawny,

Dean is right, the key thing is whether she breaches the rules for returning to work.

Firstly, we must assume that she is performing work for the Ltd company so I'm afraid you need to look at whether or not she was employed by the company during the 15th week prior to the expected week of childbirth. If she was then she may, as Dean points out, have been entitled to SMP from that employer as well as her main one.

I suspect that, even if the assessment was made, she would not have qualified.

If she is on SMP from that employer you need to establish if the work was done as a keeping in touch day, if so its fine, but if not it will terminate her SMP and maternity leave from that employer only.

If she was not employed by this company during the 15th week then there may be a case for her to have her SMP with the main employer terminated now.

I suggest you have a look at the HMRC booklet E15 and trawl through the rules on terminating SML and SMP and the working for other employers bits as well. Its complicated but in this case I would say it pays to be absolutely certain.

Payrollpro

Dawny

Thanks

Thanks for your help, I'll get reading!