Digital Signature Legality for Pregnancy Leave Policy in Australia: Streamline Document Signing Process

How to eSign a document: digital signature legality for Pregnancy Leave Policy in Australia

I'm at that age where everyone around me is having children and I'm still sitting here with my old gray staffy just happy to be a dog dad but with the influx of children I've been getting a lot of questions about the parental leave pay and so I thought it would be a good topic for today's video of course all of this information is available on the services Australia Government website but navigating that website can be notoriously difficult you just about need a PhD to get through it so I thought I would do a public service today and break it all down for you guys in an easy to understand format before we begin I just want to point out that there were changes which came into effect to the parental leave pay on 1 July 2023 and those changes affect children that were born after that date or children that were adopted after that date and that's what we're focusing on in today's video if you had a child before 1 July 2023 then you fall under the old rules and so this won't necessarily apply to you [Music] hello guys Brad here from the gued investor welcome back to the channel for another video if you're new here consider hitting that subscribe button because I post regular videos about how you can do more with your money and today we are discussing the parental leave [Music] pay the parental leave pay is a government payment for up to 20 weeks or 100 days if you are off work due to the birth of a child or the adoption of a child and now the amount that you get paid is actually equal to the minimum wage and so at the moment or at the time of filming this video that works out to be about 8275 per week now this amount changes annually so it's best to check services Australia website for the latest figures there are eligibility criteria that you need to meet in order to be able to get the parental leave pay and we're going to dive into that in a moment but before we do that I just want to point out the difference between the parental leave pay and maternity [Music] leave this is where a lot of people get confused the parental leave pay is not maternity leave maternity leave or sometimes it's called paternity leave is the time you get off work after having having a child or adopting a child under the fairw workk commission eligible employees in Australia are entitled to up to 12 months off work provide they meet the eligibility criteria so that basically means that you can take 12 months off work due to the birth or adoption of a child and your employer holds your job for you so you can return back to work in the same capacity now if you want to learn a little bit more about this then I would suggest you check out the fair work on budsman website typically maternity leave is unpaid leave from work however some employeers do choose to give paid maternity leave and others are required to under particular industrial agreements so what you need to do is have a look at your employment contract and see if you have any paid maternity leave through your employer now from my experience where there is a paid maternity leave type of arrangement it's often 3 months of full pay or 6 months of half pay but obviously this varies depending on your employer and your agreement unfortunately a lot of small businesses can't afford to fund these kinds of arrangements so a lot of the time you'll find that it may apply if you work for a large corporate or if you work for a government but of course small businesses sometimes can do it as well so just to recap maternity leave is time off work up to 12 months now this can be paid or unpaid depending on your employment contract paid parental leave on the other hand is a government payment and yes you can claim both paid maternity leave and the paid parental leave there are eligibility criteria that you need to meet in order order to access the parental leave pay and this includes be caring for a newborn or adopted child have met the income test now we're going to discuss this more later have met the work test that is you must have worked a minimum of 330 hours which works out to be about 1 day per week in 10 of the 13 months before the birth or adoption of your child this applies to both employees and self-employed people alike be off work so that is you're taking time off work to care for your child and be living in Australia with a CI iens ship or a permanent Visa there are also some other specific Visa categories that may qualify the person claiming doesn't have to be the birth mother it can be the partner of the birth mother you can also choose to split your payments between yourself and your partner and you even have the flexibility to break down when you receive the payments so you can receive them consecutively day after day or you can break it down into individual blocks or individual [Music] days the the income test for the parental leave pay can be a little bit confusing so let me explain how it works there is an individual income test and there is a family income test if you don't meet the individual income test you can look to qualify under the family income test under the individual income test your income from the previous Financial year needs to be below the specified limit now this changes every year so you need to check what the limit is applicable to the financial year that you're looking at but as an example in the 2022 23 Financial year the limit was 168 865 now it is the person that is claiming the parental leave pay that this limit is going to apply to failing to meet the individual income tests you can then look to the family income test and as a family you have a limit of up to 350,000 so that is your combined family income if you fall below this then again you are going to be eligible now this can be particularly useful where the person that is taking time off work is the key income earner in the family under both test income refers to your adjusted taxable income so this is basically your taxable income and they add back certain items so for instance net investment losses superannuation contributions it basically tries to stop people from reducing their taxable income solely to get the paid parental leave [Music] your parental leave pay is paid through your employer so essentially the government pays your employer they then pass the funds on to you through your usual pay cycle now if you are self-employed it's going to get paid directly to you there are a couple of things that you need to do in order to make a claim so firstly you need to notify your employer at least 10 weeks prior to the arrival of your child that you intend to claim the parental leave pay and secondly you need to Lodge the claim with sent link now if you have sink online linked to your my account you can do this digitally if not you will need to contact sink just be aware that you have 52 weeks to Lodge the claim after the birth of the child or the adoption of the child once you're getting payments you have up to 2 years to use all of your payments now if you're a very organized person and like to get things ready you can actually start the claims process 3 months prior to the expected birth or adoption date but just bear in mind that you won't start getting payments until after the birth or [Music] adoption yes the parental leave pay is a taxable payment where the funds are paid to your employer your employer will take out the tax like they usually do with poy where the funds are paid directly to you the ATO will withhold 15% unless you choose to adjust that withholding tax amount generally if you're not eligible for the parental leave pay because you have exceeded the income test limits then unfortunately you're out of luck there's not really anything available not that I know of anyway if you're not eligible for the parental leave pay for other reasons such as you weren't working prior to the birth or adoption then there are a couple of other things that you can look at so this includes the newborn upfront payment and the newborn supplement these are tied to family tax benefit so there you have it a rundown of the parental leave pay now if you want to find out more information I will link the services Australia government website in the description box below it would be handy if you go on there and check out that anyway because figures are constantly changing so it depends when you watch this video but hopefully now that you got a bit of a background understanding it's going to be a lot easier to navigate but that's it for me today guys if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and I will see you guys in the next one [Music] oh