Hoo-bloody-ray! Child benefit cuts to be 'looked at for fairness'

[NoWayNoHow]

Basic logic and maths prevails at last!

Fingers crossed they actually find a fairer way to implement - I remember the uproar when it was first announced, simply because it was so ridiculously prejudiced against single salary families.

I REALLY hope they address this blatant unfairness.

The whole announcement seemed to be something DC & Gideon made up at Breakfast the morning of the conference and completely not thought through.

It's simply ridiculous how a family who can earn over £80k is still entitled to it whilst another who earns half isn't. It's just not logical.

Let's hope they sort it. Dh higher rate earner as he goes abroad for weeks at a time. Makes me in full time work much harder. will make huge difference to lose it

Not seen this, what is the plan?

They also never said what mechanism was going to be used to continue NI conts for people who had stopped working to care for children so they maintained their state pensions. As far as I know they never said anything.

Hope they bloody well let us know soon,we really need to plan.

They sooooo have no idea what it's like living in the real world.

The just keep them dangling attitude sums up millionaires who think up policies-no regard or realisation of the impact it will cause.

And yes that they proposed something so illogical and unfair in the first place was just mind-boggling.

Unfortunately I don't think it will change after the review. Hope I am wrong. Utterly ridiculous.

Hope to FUCK they change their minds. Me and DH do not share our money. (Don't get me started on that one!!!GGGGRRRRR) He is a higher tax rate payer. I am not and only work PT. I will be screwed if I lose the CB.

There's a thread in chat about this too.

The announcement on what they might be doing is as clear as mud, and appears to do nothing for families where one adult works part time for a low income (these were the very people who were hit by the removal of the 10% tax rate, and it looks as if they may miss out on any amelioration here too).

There has still been no sane announcement on the NI aspect. So the administrative costs of "claim and claw back" remain, as will overheads of bringing in a new system, and the ongoing maintenance of varying claims as incomes change. This will be an expensive change administratively, and it seems unlikely it will bring the scale of savings envisaged.

It also continues to drive a coach and horses through the principle of independent taxation.

It would be better all round to make savings by just freezing CB for longer (or even making a small cut) as you can make provision for the lowest income families via CTC.

Hmm don't mean to sound unsympathetic marge2 but in your situation I would expect the Govt to look at household income and if your DH isn't playing fair then how can the Govt sort that out????? Your DH needs to be a responsible adult.

That sounds mean, not my intention - don't know your background but clearly a difficult situation.

marge's situation is exactly the sort of situation that CB was brought in for in the first place, interestingly.

took their time. the muppets.

I sympathise Marge and what Sardine says is exactly right.

What provincial Middle Class thinking. From most people on here and the Tories, realising the damage that they could be doing to their core voting base. Why don't the put the money into dealing with spiraling child poverty or something? If one of you is a higher rate tax payer and the other isn't working, therefore no child-care costs, if you can't survive then you need to seriously look at your budgeting, and maybe spend less at Boden.

Agree with Sardine, CB is paid directly to the mother and was done to ensure the mother had money for her children if the fathers were either feckless with their earnings or just plain tight. The fairest way to look at it (based on the original reason it was given) would be to look at the mother's income (or father if main carer/sole parent) and judge it on that.

god george osbournes comments are really out of touch with reality. High earner smust pay their way too?? err as if he knows what it is like living on a single earning wage of 44k p/a when his family have MILLIONS

SmallPrint? eh? So if the main carer doesn't have an income and the other partner is on mega-bucks then the main carer should get CB?

TheSmallPrint.... what about Mothers' who are feckless with their CB?? A friend of mine was disgusted at the cuts to CB as her parents gave it directly to her as 'pocket money'. Mine was going to fund 4p cans of baked beans and 7p loaves of bread from Kwik Save when I was growing up....

Do you really believe that everyone who earns over that threshold is middle class? what bizarre thinking

pamplem0usse, CB was always paid to mothers whether requiring childcare or not. Why is this now a provicial middle class thing?

I don't think I ever said it being paid to the mothers was. I think I said that paying it to mothers' whose partners are earning over HR threshold was....

So are you provicial middle class if you earn £43k?

Doesnt it also only affect those who are PAYE too?

Personally I think it would just make far more sense to either wait until Universal Credit is introduced and merge CB into that or change the formula for tax credits so that families earning over say (for example) £42k no longer benefit from it.

It's not that I am whining about me personally losing the money. I understand we all need to make cuts and pay more. But it's the sheer idiocy of the way they've gone about it which makes me mad.

Let me see.... Yes.
My single-parent mother worked full time and we had an income of around 7k in the early-to-mid 90s. Go figure.