To think women with 3+ kids should pay less taxes

Exactly! Maybe you should be paying more taxes, not less.

Indeed @fitzwilliamdarcy

I read somewhere just recently that in the UK, most people do not pay enough tax over their lifetimes to become nett contributors. The threshold for becoming a nett contributor is to earn over £65k (in 2024 figures). So some of us have been nett contributors for over half of our working lives - I think we've paid AND some for our care in old age ...

The world is not over populated because families in the UK have 1.8 children. It's overpopulated because some countries have families with 5 children and many women there have no rights and no contraception - having one child per family in the UK won't stop global population increases.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62892596
I will have a wild guess that raising birth rates may not be solely attributed to taxes

The issue then is the failure of society and employers to value the job of child rearing. Many transferable skills, and as other people often get paid to do it (childcare) why shouldn't it count as work experience?

One thing that needs addressing for parents though is the child support system. Too many absent parents are getting away with not paying their full share of child support, or not paying it at all).

In the short term, yes. In five, ten, fifteen years time when she's either returning to full time employment with a full set of years on her employers' pension, or restarting the job hunt from scratch with an empty cv, not so much.

And the more people who will need pensions and care in 60+ years time, just making the ponzi scheme even worse!

Because there are multiple benefits of homogenous society with shared values and culture.
Just look up UK diversity and compare to crime rate.

have a massive problem right now with fewer children but a very large, non tax playing, eldery population.

Life expectancy is starting to fall
Also everyone pays tax.

And, there's fewer job vacancies than people on jobseekers benefits (that's not even including people looking for a job who aren't claiming benefits).

Separately, as well as the childless not by choice, I mentioned secondary infertilty in my previous post. Another friend of mine is an only child. Her parents wanted a second but it didn't happen for them.

Why should people in those positions (childless through infertility or 'one and done' through secondary infertility) be financially penalised for something already emotionally upsetting?

Not to mention OP's idea could encourage a worrying move towards women losing bodily autonomy. We're not just 'baby-making machines'.

I love being a mother but that was my choice. My friend whose mother resented being a mum wishes women hadn't felt so pressured to have kids.

Think of the children of women (and men) pressured into parenthood against their wishes. They won't have good childhoods even if they're financially ok. My friend still suffers from depression because of her childhood. Her mum has depression too.

I would be happy to pay more tax if we all got more for it. E.g. Sweden has a v high tax rate but nursery is £150 per month. So equality is better, mums go back to work etc.
Parents would pay a higher tax rate but less out of their pocket in other areas....so works out. This is in my mind better than directly incentivising 3+ kids.
Also for the tax have ~18 months Mat and Pat leave paid to 90% up to 90k - which is great.
The 'unfairness' creeps in when you are in that country and childless. All the tax, less of the benefits. But it is still a really great place to live!!

A tax break wouldn't anywhere near cover the cost of a child though, so it's not really a huge incentive.

Finding some way to drastically reduce childcare costs, and going some way to improve maternity and postnatal care would be a far greater incentive. Some of the stories you here from posters on here and in real life about how horrific their pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal experience was, it's clear it's not just finances that are stopping women having children.

I’d rather the government come up with a plan to reduce the cost of housing ( both rented and owner occupied), reduce the cost of utility bills and reduce childcare costs. Just make life more affordable for everyone, basically.

It’s poor political decisions that have led to life being so expensive. It’s not inevitable.

So you want to have more people using a failing system whilst also putting less funding into said system? What could go wrong.

But there would be no one available to build the schools and administer the healthcare

Without all the UC payments we may even be able to afford proper schools and healthcare.

You've said we don't need any more births, and implied that every birth has a net cost to the taxpayer. I'm asking you for the evidence of that in the long term economic benefit of your advocation of a zero birth rate.

Zero birth rate = widespread famine and population collapse etc within about 30 years surely ?
Great for the environment though 🥳👍🏻

Remind me what temperature the planet will be in 60 years?

I agree, that's different, and I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your mum. I'm not necessarily saying that people shouldn't get to actively choose the time and manner of their own death where this is genuinely what they want.

But I am very concerned about how we manage any such discussion in a way that people who haven't made this decision of their own free will don't end up being bullied/badgered/coerced/guilt-tripped/'encouraged' to shuffle off just to free up resources. Might just sound like I've watched Soylent Green too many times, but any number of posts I've seen around MN recently give me the feeling that we might not be a million miles away from that scenario if we're not careful.

(Not necessarily saying that's what CrispieCake meant, btw, but when assisted dying is raised within a post that details how under-resourced the country currently is and the fact that it's set to get worse, it's kind of hard not to wonder.)

However, OP, I don't think your suggestion is the answer either, because inevitably whatever incentive is offered people to have more children won't fully cover the cost of said children in every case, so could lead to an increase in child poverty.

Hi, can I see your economic analysis of the long term impact (say 60 years?) of a zero birth rate on global tax revenues?

No, we shouldn't be encouraging people to have more kids full stop. We did this before. Family allowance was introduced in the 40s to encourage population growth after the war. It was only paid from the 2nd Child onwards originally which is why we have the 'boomer' generation. By having more kids we increase the need for more to fund the generation after and so on in a never ending cycle. We need to allow population to naturally decrease over time until we reach a manageable level, both for ourselves and the planet! I'm 48 and we have 1 child, I have 5 female friends our age who have chosen to have none and all of the rest have only 1. We've all worked all our lives and paid into both state and work pensions so although we won't have anything to leave our kids at least we shouldn't leave debt and should be able to fund our old age care... Provided whatever government we have then doesn't f things up even more!

The planet doesn’t really need new humans making, for a variety of reasons, those trying to pin their child rearing decisions on altruistic endeavour are emphatically misunderstanding the cost that children are to each and every tax payer (childless or otherwise).

I think it would be much better - as well as more sensible - to provide all families with extra cash for childcare, and leave them to decide what sort e.g. stay at home with mum, looked after by grandparents, childminder, nursery. At the moment it is assumed if you don't go out to work you are a burden on the economy - and then everyone worries that a) there are not enough young people, b) children are turning up at school unsocialised and not potty-trained. A society that valued the work women do as mothers (and men as fathers) would not only give help for childcare if both parents are working.
Not only wealthy families have more than 2 children, btw, you will find many poorer people who do.

OP you mean less tax or lower taxes