To think this epitomises the squeezed middle - HMRC shitiness

With regards to the child maintenance service there was a lady on here who used to work for them. Do a search on recent threads.
Anyway, they’re just a it was that they have a lot more powers than they allude to including taking into consideration his assets and valuing them. So if having that House saves him £1000 in rent they basically say he’s got £1000 in income.
I am currently doing the same with my ex’s Tesla because of course it’s not costing him much in company tax but it is quite a big asset, he certainly couldn’t afford to buy that himself

Life insurance is though

Being a widow isn’t a personal choice.

You’re asking the tax system to solve something which is essentially a matter for the individuals.

Parents should pay appropriately for bringing up their offspring but you can’t make someone stay with you who doesn’t want to. The answer is to choose wisely in the first place and consider whether you could bring up that child should you be left as a lone parent. If I had my way I’d make sure that maintenance was collected through taxation and covered childcare so that the parent with the most care was able to work. So you’re only really left with a complete deadbeats not paying up and in which case that really is your poor decision in the first place

Also a single parent and my income matches outgoings now, without food so petrol and food comes from savings currently.

Savings will be wiped out in a year, earlier if any emergencies occur. I work full time already.

@lurchersforever unfortunately council tax is also going to shoot up. The Government gave Police officers a raise but a percentage of it has to come from already cash strapped forces so most froze recruitment and had a plan to start shedding officers. Therefore the Gov said oops sorry yes we didn’t think and have said to Police Commissioners, use your council tax allowance to the fullest to plug the funding gap.

Hence why I said the maintenance system isn’t fit for purpose.

If people choose to live in two different homes then they can expect their expenses to be twice as high. It’s personal choice and I say that as someone who spent over 10 years as a single parent

Yep. Exactly. Where is the aspiration for people to keep more of their hard earned money instead of shelling it out to the ever increasing number of people “unable to work” for which the U.K. seems to be an international aberration….or as the Europeans say..stop having such generous benefits which are payable on a never ending basis

And also has a household to support. And probably doesn’t contribute enough to make much difference.

That fact went right over their heads.

But there’s another parent that should be paying who has their own allowances

I know @TrollTheAncientYuletideCarol. I was a single parent for a long time and the taxation system made me really mad. My dad was the sole breadwinner and was able to utilise my mum’s tax allowance!

Support staff are on far less money and more likely to qualify firvtopnup benefits though

@BIossomtoes yes, completely, there's several ways in which being a lone parent disadvantages you as you reach your tax thresholds quicker, lose child benefit quicker compared with a two-parent household and then get the whole household income taken into account for student loans, even though yours is less than other people's due to the above.

I'm not moaning too much, I do have a medium household income and am lucky to have a good job, but I would like to be taxed the same as the medium household income delivered by two people.

Right on cue 🙄

@Pleasebeafleabite mostly this is true, but in my case, my children's dad is dead, so not able to contribute a second income in the future, although I have tried to invest some money to compensate for that. Clearly, it's not as much as had he carried on in his successful career. I'd like lone households to be treated as the same as two (or three!) parent households for the purposes of tax allowances, as it's unfair that we carry a heavier tax burden than two individuals in the same household.

It goes well beyond the maintenance system. Single parents have all the expenses of a couple on one income but that isn’t reflected in taxation. It would make a huge difference if single parents had a higher child benefit cap and still got the equivalent of the old child tax allowance.

Squeezed middle?! You're a higher rate tax payer, so amongst the highest earning decile in the country, a privileged minority. With assets too I'm willing to bet, ie pension and house. Which in terms of the world's population puts you in a tiny wealthy minority.
I'd be counting your blessings.

Always the race to the bottom

Children have two parents regardless of residence. It’s the maintenance system that’s not fit for purpose

Squeezed middle?! You're a higher rate tax payer, so amongst the highest earning decile in the country, a privileged minority. With assets too I'm willing to bet, ie pension and house. Which in terms of the world's population puts you in a tiny wealthy minority.

I'd be counting your blessings.

YANBU. As soon as I had a bit of money saved as I wasn't commuting and paying out for clubs etc during the pandemic HMRC came after me for the higher rate child benefit charge and wiped it out. It was a fair cop but I only made the error because they wrote to me and told me to stop doing tax returns after being self employed then going all PAYE so I assumed that money that actually came from the government that they know about was accounted for by tax another government body tells you is due as they already know all about your income. Also it took them five years to realise. Stupid system. With that and their constantly writing to my DM in her mid 80s for tax she has already paid (and her income is only just above the threshold to pay any tax), safe to say HMRC are not on my Christmas card list.

Feeling this too, OP.

If, like me, you have a student loan that you’re never going to pay off before it gets written off (in many, many years time) log in to your student loans and click the refund for overpayments button. With your pay rises, you mind find that you get a nice little lump sum back - it doesn’t absolve your complaint at all, but every little helps.

Why are tax allowances individual and student loans calculation household based?

As a single parent individual and household amount to the same thing. Tax allowances are individual because some of us back in the dark ages wanted to be treated autonomously and not as an appendage of our husbands.

I agree that the tax system is grossly unfair to single parents, it made my blood boil.

In addition to being a lone parent and disadvantaged through the 'individual' (not household) tax allowances, I am also assessed as a 'household' for the purposes of student loan, and so when I did earn about £2k more last year, it was all taken away from me through a combination of tax and less student loan amount from my child at university which I then had to compensate the child for!

No increase in household income at all, I suppose that makes their overall loan to pay back a bit less?

I keep wondering how to get more income into the household, but if you are on a tax threshold and/or taxed as an individual and don't have a second individual receiving their tax allowance, it's quite hard. I'd need to make a very significant amount more, say £10k extra to earn about £3k extra a year, and the amount of extra work makes it undesirable at the moment.

Why are tax allowances individual and student loans calculation household based? Make it make sense!