will try keep this short and sweet.

cowhands

Hi All.

I was on maternity leave last year and recently discovered that I can claim tax back as my employer took my e280 benefit and topped up to provide me with my full wage.

My maternity leave offically started on the 31st of Dec 2008 so I got both 2008 and 2009 P60s. However, even though Ive never had a pay decrease or hours cut my gross earnings on the two P60s differ greatly.

It looks like my 2009 P60 does not include my maternity benefit as it is alot lower than the previous years earnings. Should my maternity benefit be shown on the 2009 P60? Some how I think there has been a mistake as it looks like I earned alot less in 2009 than I actually did.

Would like to get some advice on this situation before I send off the forms.

Thanks in advance.

namenotavailablE

Maternity pay is paid by the Dept of Social welfare rather than your employer and is not taxable.
Your employer would be correct to show only the salary paid to you by him/her on the P60.

Re a possible refund- you should check with your employer if you paid tax/levies on the salary only or on the sum of salary + maternity pay. It sounds like the first method applied (i.e you paid PAYE and levies on salary from employer only) in which case I don't think any refund would arise. If you paid tax/ levies on the maternity pay you would be able to get a refund of both PAYE and the various levies.