What am I entitled to?

[SammyRo]

Baby Bonus is $5000 paid in 13 installments. The first installment is around $800 and the rest are about $350. To be eligible, your combined income in the first 6 months following the birth of your baby must be below $75,000. Baby Bonus is not taxable.

Parental Leave Pay is paid to primary carers who have left work (or taken leave) due to birth of a child. You need to have worked for a total of 330 hrs across 10 of the 13 months prior to birth of the child and not had a break of more than 8 weeks. Your income in the financial year prior to the child's birth must have been less than $150k. You cannot work while receiving PLP. It is paid for 18 weeks and is the same rate as the federal minimum wage which at the moment is approx $580 p/w before tax. PLP is taxable. You can receive any maternity/parental leave entitlements from your employer as well as the government

!

BG, you might be best at answering this. Why is the income threshold different for the baby bonus and the plp? If that limit is right, we're not eligible for the bb but from what I can understand from the above I might not meet the work requirements of the plp so we'll lose out.

[nothing2lose]

Sammy, I am not BG but is it that the combined income of $75k for the baby bonus is based on money earnt in the six months AFTER the baby is born.

The PPL is the fin year prior to the baby being born.

[briggsy's girl]

Different payments have different requirements. Ppl is payable based on mums work history. Dad is ignored (essentially). It is not deemed a warfare payment. Baby bonus is deemed a welfare payment for families and 75k in the six months after birth has been deemed the low to middle income range. It is paid based on the "right now" circumstances for those six months. Cap no matter what happens before it after, in that six months it is known you earned less than the limit so you are entitled

I honestly don't know who comes up with the numbers or how! I just have to know how they're applied! Sorry

[SammyRo]

So its $75000 for sixth months? Not the full year? That makes more sense, I couldn't see the fairness in how different the limits were if it was a year. Just had a panic that we would get nothing as with doing relief teaching, I might have more than 8 weeks off. Also on that, with the maternity leave pay, how do they know how many hours are worked? I tend to work days, rather than hours, so don't work a set number of hours iykwim?
Thanks!

[briggsy's girl]

yeah it's 75k in the six months immediately following the birth


with ppl work test, you have to have worked 10 of the 13months prior, and for at least 330 hours in that time. if there is doubt based on income as to how many hours you worked, you'd be asked for proof. for instance a self employed person may be asked to show evidence that they've put in those hours as their income may be very low kwim?