Abolition of child benefit for higher rate taxpayers is an attack on women

@chinghehuang... and what about the UK citizens working in EU countries that have a reciprocal arrangement with the social systems there? I expect it balances out. £20m equates to about 19,000 children and, in your other thread, you were strongly hinting that most of these were 'children that didn't exist' i.e. thieving foreigners taking advantage of our good nature and conning us out of our tax money.

Attack on women - what bollocks!

Sounds like an assumtion that we're all at home using it for pin money until our DH gives us our housekeeping money.

@ornamentalcabbage. The last government were far to free with the tax money when it came to handing it out and far too slow to read the danger signs of massive personal debt, housing shortage etc. I can remember my amazement when I found out I qualified for CTC (albeit the minimum)and thinking 'this is too good to last'... and sure enough, it was :)

Chil1234,
I am not trying to get a racist fight for gods sake, I am trying to make a valid point about how UK tax payers money is being squandered unfairly imo, if you agree that we should be sending child benefit overseas to children that are not Uk citizens and do not live here that is upto you, I am only stating a fact which I do not agree with and which many people are not even aware of. If I had a choice I would prefer my taxes not to be spent in this way.

@BellsaRinging.... if you don't have a partner's salary to keep the family afloat and you currently have a job I'd suggest you kept hold of it.

Sure Chil I agree.

My point was that the previous government should have tacked the things that make it expensive to live in the UK such as high cost of housing, rather than just handing out cash to 9 in 10 households with dependent children.

BellsaRinging - once they're out of nursery though you'll see a massive difference in income, and you'll still have a career.

I could afford to stay at home while my DD is little, and I would certainly much rather do so, but I'm going back to work for (once it's all worked out with nursery etc) a pittance, on the principle that if I drop out now, when I DO want to go back I'll really really struggle.

I have not heard of that Chinghehuang, but sounds staggering to me.

Also if you have two people earning £43500 each they get to keep CB, whereas someone earning £44,100 with a partner earning say £12000 loses - or have I got that bit wrong?

You're just trying to get a racist fight going here and I think you're badly missing the point.

Well yes Chil I see your point but I am afraid that I am far from assured that the savings will go to those who need it most. I'm currently trying to work out whether it's worth me carrying on working. If I factor in what I have to pay to travel to work, the nursery fees, the childcare fees, and what I would earn from associated benefits (council tax benefit, free school dinners etc) it is going to be very close. And that's before you factor in the fact that I wouldn't have to work and would get to spend time with my children! I don't want to give up work, I have always believed that I should work and contribute financially to the upbringing of my children, but I am beginning to wonder what financial benefit I am getting from working...

What I don't understand is how immigrants who are looking for work in the UK are able to claim child benefit for their children who are still living in their own countries?
Why are we exporting our child benefit overseas to non UK children? I won't be affected by the changes in 2013 but I do feel sorry for the higher UK tax earner who will be supplementing foreign children with this benefit but will be unable to claim it for their own children, does'nt seem fair to me.

"the majority of families have to claim to balance the household budget"

What's certainly happened is that families have got used to a certain income and many are using it all up with nothing spare at the end of the month. Housing costs are definitely high but if money hadn't been available in the past, people would have made different decisions. As it stands, we all have some time to rearrange our finances, save costs, improve earnings, move somewhere cheaper etc. I'm a single parent and would much rather keep the £120/month CTC and CB rather than lose it. But, on the other hand, my family will still have food on the table at the end of the day... and someone else needs that £120 more than I do.

In The Times - it's behind a paywall but relevant bit was:

"But Mr Osborne admitted that using the higher-rate tax band as a kind of means test was not infallible. Anyone earning more than £44,000 a year, including personal allowances, will be asked to declare whether anyone in their household claims child benefit and that would then be clawed back via their tax code."

Where did you find the details Lucky?

I don't understand completely, but it seems I am going to lose out totally, since I am a lone parent on just over the threshold, so as I understand it I will not get child benefit, and will also lose tax credit and don't have a partner to stay at home to look after the children. So working lone parents seem to be the very worst affected. Please someone tell me I am wrong!

Having seen more details on the proposal, the lower earning partner is still going to claim and recieve CB. This amount will then be deducted from the higher earner. So, if we accept the premise of this thread that men are the high earners, then the removal of this benefit is actually an ATTACK ON MEN as their pay packets will be the ones affected so I think we should ask mumsnet to retitle the thread appropriately.

:)

I agree Chil, I'd rather not claim any state benefits personally. I'm not low paid, unemployed or disabled, or in any other group with additional needs and I would rather those that are received more and I received less, but we are in a crazy situation where the majority of families have to claim to balance the household budget. Housing costs were allowed to spiral out of control under the previous government.

"if he were going to integrate the two I think he'd be announcing it now."

The emergency budget was only a few months ago and CB was announced as 'frozen'... not abolished for higher-rate tax-payers. Now we have a different picture again and, by 2013, I expect things to have progressed further. Administering CB on its own as a means-tested benefit would indeed be complicated and costly which is precisely why it'll end up as part of the Universal Credit.

Benefits will remain with the low-paid, unemployed and those with disabilities. Everyone else will be looking after themselves and their families without assistance. That is as it should be.

it was originally paid to the woman as plenty of men earned lots of money they then kept all to themselves. judging by some threads on here, that's still happening today. this money was for the woman to spend on her children. of course we've now moved on in a sense so there are some dads who are primary carers for the children.

I'm hacked off. dh earns just over, by about £500, but we've got 3 kids so the non taxable child benefit is worth a lot more to us. I'm going to ask him to take a pay cut when this comes in (or we'll have to scrabble round with some tax dodge or other). why isn't it going on household income? there's already a scheme in place - tax credits - so this must also be a death knell for tax credits if they're not going to do household income data collection any more.

The universal CB was never 'fair'. It was simplistic, it was paid out to millionaires as well as the poor, and it made some very old-fashioned assumptions about the structure of family life and family finances. It has long since been overtaken with CTC which reflects household income, childcare costs and other factors. Much fairer

I'd expect that there are more details to come about how the '40% tax band' applies. I'd also fully expect that CB will get rowed in with CTC and become part of the Universal Credit in due course rather than a separate payment.

It isn't an attack on women