maternity leave tax

Hi,
Both wife and my annual salary normally brings us into the 41% tax bracket however, this year she is on maternity leave and will not hit €35,400 keeping her in the 20%. So if she earns €30K can I user her tax credits on €5,400 of my earnings paying tax @ 20% ?

Secondly, my wife received 18 weeks maternity pay. How does the maternity pay, 280, affect her tax.
For example if prior to maternity leave her take home pay is, say, 3000K gross or 2000K net paying 800 tax and 200 prsi (the figure are not accurate). While on maternity leave her net is still 2000K, but 280 of that is maternity pay, does that mean her gross is less than normal and she should pay less tax and prsi per month ?

Thanks

Yes, you can transfer part of your wife's standard rate cut off point to yourself by getting in contact with the revenue. If your wife has already had the standard rate applied to her wages however, she will probably be put on a week 1 basis (otherwise her employer's payroll would try to recoup an underpayment of tax). The week 1 basis means that every week is calculated on it's own, without taking the cumulative effect of tax paid into consideration. It may be easier to claim a repayment of tax at the year end.

The maternity pay of €280 is not taxable. So if for example the company were topping up her normal gross pay, and the company are entering the wages correctly (with MB of €280 per week in the 'non-taxable' section) she should end up with a higher net. However, it will depend on what has been agreed by the company e.g. when a colleague recently went on maternity leave, the company I work for agreed to top up her net pay to the same as she would normally get, meaning that there was a lower cost to the company to pay maternity pay than if they topped up her gross wages.