Statutory Maternity Pay

[Bazza500]

Having been a sole trader for over 21 years. I changed to being a limited company on 1st September 2013.
On 1st October 2012 my admin assistant retired after 18 and a half years and I took on 2 part time staff to replace her.
One of them has now informed me she is pregnant and will be taking 9 months off from April 2014. Her due date is 22nd April 2014.

My question is will she be entitled to SMP or will she have to claim Statutory Maternity Allowance as the limited company has only been going since 1st September therefore not giving her the 26 weeks employment prior to being 15 weeks before the birth date?

What is the difference between the 2 and is she likely to be worse off because of the change to limited company?

 

[StevensOnln1]

You need to calculate 26 weeks from when she started working for you, not from when you formed your company.

 

[Bazza500]

So when I fill in the form for SMP funding and it asks for the business start date do I put April 1992 or 1st September 2013 and will this cause confusion as the 2 companies have different tax offices and different PAYE references?

 

[Merchant UK]

I would imagine that the staff would of had new employment with the new limited company, as you say being a sole trader you ceased trading and then restarted as a limited company so any employees that you bought over from the old business would of started as a new employment with the limited company.

As the two businesses are totally separate ie, the sole trading and Ltd, i can't see how they can put it down as continuance

 

[Bazza500]

That was what I thought would be the case. On 30th August they were all given p45's and then started again on 1st September.

My thinking (although I'm still not sure) was that she would have to apply for SMA and if this is the case I was wondering what the difference is as I don't want her to be worse off because we changed to a ltd company.

From the forms on HMRC website for SMP funding it would seem that I cannot claim this if I put the start date as 1st September.

 

[Newchodge]

If the business in its entirety transferred from a sole trader to a limited company, and all the staff transferred with it, then TUPE should apply and the law would consider that the limited company (even though it had not existed then) had employed the staff from the day they started work for the business entity.

 

[Tom McClelland]

She isn't going to be worse off. The Ltd took over the business and employment obligations of the sole trader therefore for the purposes of things like SMP entitlement the employment is continuous back to 2012 and normal SMP entitlement applies.