Ok, so the Government are going to withdraw childcare vouchers

[lovelymama]

Did anyone else see this in the news tonight? I can't believe Gordon Brown thinks that this is a good idea. My partner and I rely on the vouchers to make it worth my while going back to work. Without the vouchers, I don't see the point in working and I'd just have to stop.

The idea is to spend the money on giving 'poor' people free nursery places. I completely agree with helping people on lower salaries to have childcare so they can work, but do people who have worked hard to get a decent job have to be penalised? It doesn't quite seem fair to me.

I don't think Gordon is going to get the votes of my family at the next election. Please consider this issue when you're voting!

[mollythetortoise]

can i enquire as to what you earn. ball park figure would do.

i had a quick peek at your job and you are in investment banking so I assume you earn a reasonable salary.
How do the vouchers make that much difference to you that it becomes uneconomical for you to work without them? Serious question?

I get the full £243 in vouchers deducted from my salary each month so I still pay this money but I save the tax and NI so about £40 a month ish. I am still far better off working than not.

Why would you be better off not working just because you may not get the tax and NI saving on this £243 amount? Or am i missing something?

that doesn't make any sense to me.

[mspotatochip]

molly we claim two sets his and hers and yes it makes a huge financial and psychological impact with respect to our fairly massive nursery bill for 2 kids under 3. With a joint income of about 70k in the south east and nursery bills and mortgage things can get scarily tight and you qualify for nothing other than child benefit and these vouchers. Labour are making a huge mistake with this one IMHO and I'm leftie liberal wouldbe labour voter (if there was any point whatsoever where I live but thats a thread on its own!)

[mollythetortoise]

i am in same boat. in SE, largeish mortgage, less joint income than you , two kids nursery and my dp is self employed so doesn't qualify for any tax/ni savings at all.
only i get the £243 allowance for our family and i can still say that the £40 saving i make now would not result in me being better off not working at all which is what the op was saying .

to give up say £2k income a month so as not to save £40 is crazy!

[Greatfun]

mspotatochip - I am with you on this one. We earn roughly the same but as I am PT and in a much lower wage bracket than DH, if the £170 a month we jointly saved was taken from us I would be bringing home little more than £200 per month for a 3 day week job. Its bad enough as it is. Probbaly wont be a problem anyway as I think labour will be lucky to be voted back in.

[1dilemma]

But who clears 2k after nursery fees? (investment bankers aside )

This is yet another policy designed solely to save money dressed up as helping the 'poor' but removing anything and everything from the 'middle classes'

fwiw I have a decent job (not as well paid as you would all think) but once London childcare taken into account for more than 1 child we were eating into my husbands income to pay childcare

This hobby of mine is very expensive!

[Paolosgirl]

There is a petition here petitions.number10.gov.uk/keepvouchers/

Please, please sign it. I am beyond furious with this one - who the hell advises GB on these? This tax relief is a MASSIVE help to us, and to replace it with 250,000 nursery places of 10 hours for 2 year olds from the poorest families whilst taking the relief for all the other millions of working families with children from birth to secondary school age makes no sense at all. It's nothing more than a stealth tax effectively increasing our tax bill by 3p in the pound.

Seriously, where the hell am I supposed to find the money to pay for all the increases this bloody Govt keeps landing on us? We are certainly not well off, and getting poorer every year that goes by. I could cry, I really could.

[cece]

It will mean it is too expensive for me to work and I will probably have to stop.

[nauseous]

BUMP. FFS whatever next?

[Starbear]

Let them do it. & why not go the whole hog and go back to the 60's when you lost your job when you got married and definitely didn't work when you had a LO. Then I could look blankly at DH when he moans that we can't have or do various things. Ds will be in very shabby clothes so it won't matter if they get washed once a week. This always seems as if it us Mum's that are in the wrong. When are they going to say to the Dad well you can't have the season tickets, the wide screen T.V the car,the food!
I can bake cakes, look after the garden and drink coffee in the house. I won't worry about decor as everyone else will be in the same boat. Not keen on baliffs though so give the petition over 'ere love.

[Paolosgirl]

Don't forget also that VAT is going up to 20% soon, and petrol is due for a big rise.

Where are we supposed to get the money from to pay for all this? My salary isn't going up at the same rate, that's for sure.

[Biccy]

I hadn't heard that VAT was going up to 20%?!! Was just expecting it go back up to 17.5%. Help!

[MammyT]

This REALLY annoys me. The government is so keen for parents on lower wages to work (tax credits, subsidised nursery places) and I basically agree with that approach so as to break the cycle of poverty. BUT why do it at the expense of the middle classes who struggle to pay private nurseries for 1 or 2 kids, save a bit and basically keep our heads above water?

It's particularly hard for those in London and the SE. We pay extra for nurseries, extra for after-school clubs, extra council tax, extra, extra, extra..

[Paolosgirl]

Scrapping childcare vouchers will hit millions of lower paid families - it's only going to help 250,000 families with 2 year olds, which is a tiny drop in the ocean.

When will they realise that the middle income earners have very little else to give - childcare vouchers have allowed me to continue working and to continue to be classed as a middle income earner that they can continue to shaft. How many people will have to stop work as a result, and then add to the welfare state burden? I have to use a private nursery because state ones aren't open for long enough throughout the day, and it put it's prices up by more than double the rate of inflation and my pay rise.

They announced childcare vouchers to a massive fanfare - and now that toad doesn't even have the decency to announce in his speech that they are withdrawing it, but sneaks it in afterwards. Shame on you, GB.

[nauseous]

Where did you see the story?

[twinkletoescare]

Im a childminder and this is going to hit me hard. Most of my families pay in childcare vouchers,when these are withdrawn many parents are not going to be able to afford the extra childcare costs...
This is going to have a HUGE knock-on effect for many mnay people.

[nauseous]

INFO: Employees taking up childcare vouchers from April 2011 for the first time will no longer benefit from tax and national insurance breaks, while employees who are existing recipients of childcare vouchers with have their tax and NI breaks withdrawn from April 2015.

So - no option of going back to work for millions of women who currently can do so! It won't affect us for a while but not being able to pay for after school clubs with the vouchers as some people often do with older children.

Another way to free up some jobs??

It undermines (often part time) women workers.

Can't believe more people aren't angry about this!! (maybe they don't know?)

[Pluginbaby]

It's because the story has been hidden behind the nursery places for 2 years olds story!

Doesn't seem to have been picked on by the media, after all it only affects working Mums who should after all be staying at home and looking after the kids! GB is just helping put us back where we rightly belong!

But hey we still get £2k to buy a new car with, well for our DH's to buy a new car with seeing as we will no longer be able to afford to go to work and therefore will have no independent income!

It's great living in a modern society

[Paolosgirl]

Not just working mums - working parents. Dads get the childcare vouchers as well.

[Pluginbaby]

I know they do Pg but in fairness it affects more Mums than Dads. And alas if push came to shove I bet it would be Mothers who would be most likely to give up work if childcare became an issue.

Ultimately I think its a pretty sexist policy

[nauseous]

I agree its sexist because the woman often earns less than her partner, ans hence she is more likely to stop work to mind the children. Though you're right it often does affect Dads too.

It would be tuogh for childminders as well.

So the bottom line is that parents will be between £78 - £500 odd A MONTH worse off - for both parents claiming vouchers, if they're in higher tax bracket. Have I got that about right?

That's one hell of a lot of money for most people!

[ElectricElephant]

bumping, and linking to the petition again

petitions.number10.gov.uk/keepvouchers/

[Paolosgirl]

Yes, I agree, it's mainly mothers that are the lower wage earners, but I'm not sure that mums are necessarily affected more than dads. Either way, it's going to affect families - and not just those on a higher tax bracket.

We'll be around £150 a month worse off - and we don't have a £150 to spare, simple as that, and that's before we have all the other rises such as VAT, petrol, council tax, annual nursery fee increases and so on. There isn't £150 floating around spare in the bank account each month - what on earth are we supposed to do???

[DownyEmerald]

I think this is mad, and very little publicity about it.

We just get the one lot of childcare vouchers, but it makes a difference, and yes, physchologically as well which is important. It made me feel that the government supported my decision to return to work (rather than just cracked the whip and said I had to).

There was a reason to introduce them, I don't see why that reason has disappeared. And I really feel that it's devisive - penalising one lot of parents to benefit another lot.

Also the whole thing about childcare being too expensive to make it worth returning to work. Luckily for me that isn't true (and still wouldn't be true if they pulled them tomorrow), but for a lot of parents it is true. If we all got tax relief on all childcare costs it would be a great boost, and I'm sure more people would go back to work. And because is is usually the mum who does or doesn't go back to work - it is sexist!

Rant over.

[nauseous]

BUMP

[ElectricElephant]

BUMP