To think this epitomises the squeezed middle - HMRC shitiness

The world didn’t start in the 1990s @Radishknot.

“Changes to the family allowance were made by subsequent governments. For example, it was expanded to include the first child in 1975. However, it remained a universal benefit.”

“The family allowance was replaced by child benefits in 1977. Child benefits remained a universal benefit until 2013, when a tax charge was introduced for earners over £50,000.”

It wasn’t, it used not to be payable for the first child.

Im sure it was universal in the 90s & for the eldest? People had more dc decades ago so I don’t think excluding the first child prior to do would have made much difference compared to now.

There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be a means tested benefit just as WFA is now

WFA has only just become means tested, how many years was it universal?

We shouldn’t be handing taxpayers’ money to people who don’t need it.

Id argue all families should be given CB, they do in many other countries. No one is going to have dc to get CB but we desperately need more dc since nobody wants more immigration. Higher taxpayers pay a lot into the system & are getting less out with things like state pension age moving out, changes to other taxes, why not throw them a carrot.

YANBU OP

What makes this worse is that Labour have just gifted train drivers a very generous pay rise on top of a very generous salary, with no strings attached ... and they are still refusing to work weekends and/or going on strike.

I'd like to see RMT/ASLEF members teach a class, day in day out!

Rant over. I feel your pain OP

It wasn’t, it used not to be payable for the first child. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be a means tested benefit just as WFA is now. We shouldn’t be handing taxpayers’ money to people who don’t need it.

I am in a lone parent household, so only get the tax relief on my income rather than on two incomes as in many households, I feel cross about this a lot.

The fact I pay more than two people on a very low or minimum wage dual income does annoy me, as I am not able to benefit as much as them by increasing my wage over any given tax bracket. If they earned £20k each, they get tax relief on 12k on both 20k, they pay tax on 16k, where as if I earn 40k, I only get tax relief on that once, so am paying tax on 28k of it. Unfair in the extreme and means if I want to try to earn much more for my household, as a lone wage-earner, I have to earn more than they do for the same salary. My 'household' isn't maximising the tax allowance by being a lone parent one, and pays more in tax as I reach the thresholds quicker on one salary than on two with the tax burden spread....

Child benefit should be universal without a limit, the equivalent was in the past.

As pp said it’s inflation.

60k today is the equivalent to 48k k in 2020 or 32k in 2000. Salaries are pretty crap in the UK but people have only woken up to it recently. Plus the frozen tax bands.

Support staff in our school was offered the option to take their payrise over 3 paycheques so as not to screw up any additional benefits they are receiving. Should have offered teachers the same option.

it’s unlikely a teacher will be receiving benefits though, spreading the payment won’t impact tax.

pay rise I have just received (it was the teachers' 5.5% and the first 3 months were pretty much wiped out anyway as they were received in a lump sum in November so taxed more, so that what I received for 3 months was the same as I what I got for one month this month
got £630, which is £100 less than the tax I owe so is essentially wiped out by that
You've double counted the tax here, but you only paid one time. Appreciate you paid extra tax, but now you're in the relaxed portion where you earn more.
I'm self employed, so I like to prepay tax and hate always seeing yet more money due next July / January. Unfortunately, government has chosen inflation alongside stifling employment growth, so whatever the income we will all feel the reduction alongside the next few years. Your 5.5% aim is rebalancing salaries across industries by creating inflation (it wouldn't for just teachers but obviously every union has requested an increase at once); from macroeconomic theory this approach would never be expected to lead to you feeling an increase, it's more of a tidying exercise. Really you need to look to promotions and the extra work like exam marking to feel any benefit.

I realise it was meant spirited of me, I think the bitterness of a life of non stop working and seeing pay rises eaten up in tax while costs are rising is overriding any sense of reason at the moment.

That's a bit mean. This WASPI is fully aware that many young families are struggling financially (many of us do have children and grandchildren) and totally accept that it would be ridiculous to pay compensation across the board. It's very disheartening to read threads like this one and to realise how difficult and miserable life is for so many parents.

How long ago was that?

1975, but it was nowhere near as much as an additional personal allowance. We did get a useful tax rebate though.

How long ago was that? They bought in tax credits mark 1 when my child was quite young, but I never got a post office book for child benefit, it was directly paid.

If we gave parents the possibility to earn an extra £5000 (finger in the wind guesstimate) per child then the tax allowance for a family of 2 would be
2x12,570 + 10000

£35,140 tax free.

It would be more than child benefit is worth - but that's given rather than allowing you to earn more (Of course CB currently stops for people over a certain amount)

Would it work if you said there wasn't a limit on the number of children ... it'd mean the bigger your family was the more you could earn without paying tax.

I think working parents is a good thing. But it's so horribly expensive we need to work out how to make it make sense for people.
I don't know what the full financial consequences are as I'm not sat with any stats or models of behaviour that might be encouraged by the change.

If you’re a 40% tax payer then you get to keep 60% of any extra you earn.

Thats very different to nothing. If it’s come in lumps then that might not happen payment to payment but that’s the net effect for the year.

Back in the dark ages there was. My son was born in March and we got the entire year’s tax allowance back to the previous April - which was before he was conceived. There was no child benefit for the first child, though, so I guess one cancelled out the other.

I know several single mum's who know it is not worth working because their part time salary would stop childcare and benefits but not be more than benefits alone... It's forcing a lot of women out of work for a decade.

Nonsense, they’ll get 85% of childcare covered by Universal Credit and their benefits taper once they earn more than the AET which is around £800 per assessment period at a rate of 55p in the pound. They’d need to be earning a reasonably good salary part time to loose all benefits.

I think a tax allowance for each child would be helpful. And for married people it could be shared between them.

Don't worry, the WASPI crowd will come along in a moment and tell you how hard done by they are.

Yep…the middle squeezed to Ill health by the last government and being squeezed to death by the lying toads that are Labour and Starmer who all lied through their teeth to get elected

If the amount you owe is around £700 then for your whole 5.5% increase to be used up in a year you’d only be earning 14k?

You can ask that the repayments are extended over more than one year to reduce the financial impact.

So how long have you been teaching? NMW full time salary after deductions works out at around £1500 a month. I teach for 2 days a week on M6 and my net salary is over £1000 a month.

You would be better off cleaning for cash or tutoring

Sympathies.

i work in the NHS. We’ve just had our pay rise from April. It’s pushed me up to the next pension bracket which wipes most of it out. My genes aren’t great, there’s a good chance I won’t get to retirement age yet I’m not brave enough to opt out!! DH and the kids will benefit though….

Charities are well known not to pay well. You could change sector.