I'm curruntly on marternity pay and i have just received child tax credits for my 1st child, hubby and i also get a small working tax credit. What i was wanting to know is am i able to work a small amount of hours with out it affecting my money? Do we get maternity pay even if we go back to work?
Thanks

no - maternity pay gets stopped as soon as you go back to work - it is illegal for your employer to continue to pay it to you. UNLESS you had 2 jobs prior to being pregnant and you go back to 1 job but continue to receive maternity pay from the other. You may be entitled to other benefits though such as childcare allowance and so on so it may be worth investigating. be careful that what they tell you is accurate tho - recheck befor eyou make a decision based on the inforamation. i took a job based on being told by the tax credit office that based on my income, hours of work, childcare costs etc that i would get 80% of my childcare costs paid for me but as it turned out this was completely untrue and i received nothing and was seriously out of pocket!
good luck with whatever you decide but i would say if you are interested in only doing a few hours then it would be best to wait until your maternity pay ends.

Hi Riches, I am pregnant with my first child, just out of curiosity how much is child tax credit?

viki x

Just looked this up earlier today.....family element is £545, child element is £2085 and u get an extra £545 for children up to their 1st birthday. That max allowance, what u get depends on ur circumstances and at what point in the financial year u apply. Child benefit is £17.85 (I think) for 1st child - this will be £20 from 5th Jan 2009.