The baby bonus v's paid parental leave is a hard one to work out. I might have the decision taken out of my hands anyway if I can't get atleast one more days work in the next few weeks (as you have to have no more than an 8 week break between days of work) and even though I am well up on the total number of hours required I have now been off work for a while.
From what I could work out using their online calculator the paid parental leave (after tax) would only be about $800 more than the baby bonus and you can't return to any sort of work at all for atleast 18 weeks. The baby bonus is tax free whereas the parental leave is taxed so that makes a huge difference (even though I'm only on the 20% tax bracket. It is so confusing because I have been told it is taxed but doesn't count as declarable income for centrelink purposes - which doesn't make sense either. And no one from Centrelink seems to be really clear about how it all works for people who would be getting single parenting payment. If they can't work it out what hope do the rest of us have?
Lori
DD - 14
Bub due 28th Aug (kinda hoping she might come a little early because my body is not handling this pregnancy so well).
Bookmarks