Shared parental leave when wife is unemployed

[camembert]

Sorry to break the rules with a throwaway but I don't want my work colleagues reading it.

I am expecting my 2nd child in late October and would like to take around 8 weeks of shared parental leave. We are in the fortunate position of my wife not needing to return to work but this means that the wife is not eligible for maternity leave or allowance thus I am ineligible for shared parental leave.
From reading the gov.uk website I think we have two options to earn an entitlement to maternity allowance without getting a regular job:

1) My father in law has his own business so I assume that he could employ her for at least 26 weeks paying her at least £30 for 13 of them. She is reluctant to ask him to do this.

2) Become self employed and either start pay class 2 national insurance or get a small earnings exemption. We are a bit stuck for ideas on how to earn £30 per week at the moment but I assume she won't just be able to invoice me £30 per week for household chores? Would selling a few bits on ebay count?


I started this venture looking for ways to get extra time off work but it is starting to look a bit like benefit fraud. Would either of the methods be OK and what do I need to do in order to keep it all legal?

[camembert]

Claudia Skies said:

I am simply astounded.

I realise that it sounds pretty bad but there is a threshold to meet and I am looking at ways to meet it with the least amount of time from the children and with no legal recourse. So, say if she worked for her dad and cleaned the office once a week would that be sufficient for employment? Would selling enough existing household goods on eBay meet the criteria for being self employed?

[camembert]

crofty1984 said:

You could use some of your holiday?

I hope to take 12 weeks in total.

[camembert]

Countdown said:

What you describe is fraud. You can't make fraud legal.

HTH

Self employed people are entitled to claim maternity allowance and I looking for a way to legitimately become eligible for it without her returning to regular work.

With the ebay example, if selling your own possessions can't qualify as trading would buying things from car boot sales and then selling them qualify? Would she need £30 of takings or profit to meet the threshold?

[camembert]

Countdown said:

Why stop at 12? Just wondering......

8 Weeks is about as long as I would like to go without my regular salary.

[camembert]

tex200 said:

Take unpaid leave instead of trying to fiddle the system if you want the time off that badly.

I've head down the shared parental leave route as it has recently been advertised as an option at work.
Until your comment I didn't know that unpaid leave was an option. I have now read out 'family friendly' policy and could get 4 weeks per calender year unpaid. However, I'm not sure if it's the wording of the document but it appears that if the total leave period is greater than 4 weeks then I have better rights to return to my original job under the shared parental leave scheme.

I know this sounds bad, but like all good tax avoiders I would like to comply with the law.

[camembert]

paulrockliffe said:

Problem is if your intention is only to do whatever you do so that you can claim statutory paternity pay for that period then whatever you do will be fraudulent. What you're really asking is what can I do to stop myself getting caught?

I presume that if she returned to work in a conventional part time job with the sole intention of becoming eligible then that would not be classed as fraudulent.
If the scale was fraudulent-immoral-normal I guess I'm asking how to make sure we stay on the immoral side of fraudulent.