To think women with 3+ kids should pay less taxes

Biggest barrier to people having children is 1. The childcare cost - so make it free and 2. The generation that just don't want to give up their lifestyles to have kids - unfortunately not a lot can be done about the second part unless you stop fining parents for taking kids on holiday in term time or make family holidays cheaper make family homes cheaper - give parents a bigger tax break when they retire on the basis that we are providing the next generation of tax payers

Ha no. Children are a choice.

@Decembersunset a parent on sick leave would be looking after their child themselves. And they would get far more on benefits than a single person.
There is a reason that nearly all street homeless women are childfree.
A child's costs would be reduced as well.
Before I had children I had a NMW nursey job supporting families on benefits on a rough housing estate. Nearly all were better off financially than I was and had better housing. The difference of course was that my situation was temporary.

We have long term illness benefits for those people not at retirement age and it is less than the state pension. Yes there would be more long term sick but also more people working and PIP is less than state pension anyway.

Those who still retire early due to private pensions will not be able to also claim a state pension until later but would still have their private pension taxed early as they do now.

This really, with birth rates dropping and schools closing we should be able to spread a bit more money here.

But a single person on a sick leave would only need to pay their own costs, a single parent on the sick leave may get 100 extra in child benefit but then would need to pay thousands in child care or for older children hundreds to cover their food/clothes/hobbies. There may be some kids which don't need childcare and happy to reduce their spending to help a sick parent but in average it is the opposite - parent would skip meals/sell their belongings/get in debt to let their children have the same lifestyle as their peers

This, exactly. My friend used to go on and on about being a boss woman and “working mother” and she was in this same situation. Working two days a week but receiving a lot of top ups on benefits.

Just sort housing out. Much lower rents and mortgages would benefit everyone.

I'm from Singapore. Nobody feels pressured to have kids ffs, and in fact I'd say the pressure seems to be greater in the UK or London, in my circles at least.

Possibly the pressure you've noticed in the UK and London is related to the what you say below? Especially for people on lower incomes.

Singapore where everyone owns property due to universal housing

In the UK the childless and childfree are low priority for social housing.

The Singapore housing model sounds good actually. Lack of decent affordable housing in the UK is a problem for both families and the childless/child free. It also costs so much money (money that could be used amongst other things to help support parents).

Housing, health, and poverty are interlinked, so more social housing would reduce the welfare benefits bill and NHS cost.

I agree parents should have support, but I don't agree with financially penalising those without children.

There's people like my friend's mum who resented having children. That's awful for their kids. There's also people who struggle with their fertility. Already emotionally hard, so extra cruel to also financially punish them.

And a previous poster made a good point that the childless especially those who are single are often the worst off financially.

Excellent post.

I also agree with the pp who said they need to tackle housing and making living more affordable in general. That would be a fairer incentive that goes to the root of some of the issues.

Also can I add a lot of men and even some women shouldn’t have had one kid let alone three. Let’s not be in a rush to incentivise people to have kids just so we can create more worker bees, when they’re not capable of taking care of them properly and many even regret having kids.

exactly, and what if they have kids that stay in the UK but don’t work?

My friend didn’t work until she was 30, and she had 3 kids. She was on benefits from age 18 to 30 and still is due to working so few hours and her partner does cash in hand work.

I see her kids going the same way due to the way she’s raised them. They’re nice kids and have potential but unfortunately she never pushed them and they’re very unambitious. This is a common scenario. Although the kids are teens she only works part-time (and she’s not a single parent)

I'm not advocating population control, just against incentivising women in the uk to have 3+ children.

Which planet are you proposing? Very interested to hear the plan. I don't do well in the heat so a move further from the sun might suit me 🤔

Because the assumption that childless people are all “much better off” than parents - which doesn’t take into account relationship status, salary, locatiom, age, housing, health, upbringing, generational wealth, other dependencies etc. - is partly why we live in a society where childless people are ignored by policymakers.

Because it’s assumed that we don’t need help, because children are the only thing that’s expensive and therefore the only reason a person might be poor.

It’s highly relevant to a conversation about who should get more govt financial help.

How is this relevant to the conversation ? 🤣

@Metempsychosis but tax breaks to people already out of poverty does not lead to them having more children. Other countries have tried it.
It would make more sense to tackle housing so young couples can have children earlier. The later you have children, the more likely you are to only have one.

I’ve noticed that too and I find it so odd.

@Decembersunset I think the government needs to invest in children. But parents are not always worse off than childfree people. A single person off long term sick gets just over £90 a week plus some help with housing benefit if renting and some help with council tax. They are poorer than parents off sick.

That's the unspoken reasoning behind the "tax breaks as well as benefits" model.

At the moment, the UK acknowledges the cost of raising dependent children through benefits, but not through a change in the tax allowance. It's a model solely driven by child poverty reduction - once you're out of the poverty level then the government takes the view that it's personal choice.

A reasonable and defensible view, but not the only reasonable and defensible approach.

I'm from Singapore. Nobody feels pressured to have kids ffs, and in fact I'd say the pressure seems to be greater in the UK or London, in my circles at least.

For many young Brits, expanding your family seems to be tied to the idea of showcasing your financial stability, ability to own a house, etc... whereas children are much less of a status symbol in Singapore where everyone owns property due to universal housing.

The incentives aren't going to make anyone pop a baby out for some quick cash, in Singapore at least where most of the population are white-collar graduates. They're more targeted at stable couples who actively want to take the next step, but are deterred by concerns about financial stability and COL for the next 18 years or so.

I can see loads of problems surrounding childcare and finances amongst parents on Mumsnet, so that's obviously a potential issue for would-be parents in the UK or elsewhere.

There are plenty of self proclaimed lifelong DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) in Singapore – in fact statistically that's the norm.

What annoys me is the lack of logic: many posters have this idea that the children are drain on resources as government pays some money towards them. Completely ignoring that a). Parents spend much more on their children than any government benefits so childless people are already much better off b) investment in children care and education will pay off.
It is like complaining about farmers getting tax deduction for the costs of seeds etc. I don't need a tax break but people need to acknowledge reality that parents give more to society than take.

I've just had a look at statistics on the gov website.

There are 12.7m under 16s in the UK and there are 3.8m who have separated parents, so approx 30%.

Of the families involved, around 41% have relative low income after housing costs (38% of those with a statutory agreement in place, as opposed to 49% with no agreement in place and 33% of those with a non-statutory agreement.)

So, we're looking at roughly 12% of children in the UK who have separated parents and live in a low income household. 30% of children overall live in low income households so this makes up less than half. And even if the NRP paid everything he possibly could, that still might not make up enough for them to be out of the low income bracket.

It's a problem, but I'm not sure it would make a massive difference to the economy overall.

Just give it time, once the government changes, landlords will find their life going from dandy to suddenly some of the worst things that can happen to you in a Sudanese prison.
Did you find that surprising to read? You're not half as surprised as landlords will be when it happens.

And so many younger people are not having children because of the housing situation. Fixing this one issue would solve a lot of current problems.

🤔 Hmmm, what tax benefits can I dream up that would support me?
I could share them on Mumsnet, and then everyone, who isn't in my situation, can disapprove!

What really needs to be sorted is housing. Sort that and everyone needs to make less to live.
It will nit happen though as too many well off people are making money from housing.