tell me I've dreamt this - DC proposing to give tax breaks to the middle classes (who can already afford this) to help them pay for their cleaners/nannies/gardeners????

Please sign this petition if you agree with the logic below:

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/32739

Parents are required to pay PAYE and NI on employing nannies.

British parents shoulder some of the highest childcare costs in the world.

The average gross salary of a full time live-in nanny in central London is £27,000, which includes £9,500 in tax and national insurance contributions.

Because a nanny?s gross wages are paid out of the parents? after-tax income, this effective double taxation means one parent needs to earn £37,000 a year just to cover the cost of the nanny.

Action government should take:

1). If nannies are treated as employees than parents should be treated as employers and allowed a tax deduction.

2). If not the requirement to pay tax on nannies should be removed

I believe that this will be tax neutral as lower childcare costs will enable more mothers/ fathers to work.

I'm knowledgable bacuase I have informed myself, in order to act as an informal advisor to others, as the CAB here is very difficult to get an appointment with. Not all my friends are able to know what to do when their life goes tits up.

I have had 3 friends made redundant recently. From jobs that were not well paid, so they had no savings. Which left them at risk of homelessness, as NONE of them were aware that they could claim Housing Benefit to either cover their rent while they were looking for other work, and in one case, to claim mortgage relief to cover their interest payments so that they didn't lose their home. None of them could get an appointment with the CAB for over 6 weeks.

If the DWP would employ me PT, and I could find childcare for my DD, then I would have no hesitation taking a job there - IMO I know more about things than quite a few of the employees there, as the training is so dire, and most of them have NO knowledge of the Welfare Reform bill, for starters. Let alone the complex current arrangements wrt Carer's Allowance. And not ONE of the advisors in my local Jobcentre Plus OR their managers in the office in Basildon knew what would happen if you were too well for disability benefits, but too disabled for Jobseekers allowance.

I had to discover for myself that this was a MASSIVE loophole in the system that a HUGE number of people will fall through. I originally brought it up with the DWP in 2009 - LONG before anyone else had realised that this was a massive gap left in the system by the change-over from Incapacity Benefit (IB) (which I was in receipt of at the time), and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Apparently, I was literall the first customer in the COUNTRY to have raised that query. And the minute I was turned down for ESA (my claim for IB was in the process of being 'migrated'), and I filled in a claim form for JSA, it occured to ME. Yet not one of the people in the JCP had a clue about it.

It turns out that it IS a massive gap in the system - you can actually be left with NO benefits if you fall BETWEEN the two groups. And it is STILL a massive issue, which hasn't been resolved, and the Jobcentre staff AND managers STILL don't have an answer for that. I asked 6 months ago when I was last in there, and I will be asking again in a week and a half, because it WILL affect me in the near future.

So yes, I know a lot about the 'system'. But that is because I have had to educate myself about it. I have HAD to do that because I have had bad experiences with the 'system'. Like being misinformed about ESA appeals - I was turned down, and I asked for an appeal, and only got a 'reconsideration'. Which is done by the same team as turned down your original application. NOT by an independant tribunal. At the time I was told WAS an appeal. It was only when it was too LATE for me to have a proper appeal by tribunal that the JCP staff informed me that I should have appealed to a tribunal in writing, rather than telephoning and ASKING for an appeal...

So, to surmise - if you rely on the 'system' to eat and cover your other expenses, in particular to do with a disability - you NEED to be well informed. And if you aren't well informed - you need to hope that you KNOW someone who IS.

And for my friends - I am that person.

Hunty I can't help feeling that you should be working for the DWP as an advisor as you are very knowledgeable about the whole system.

Seriously, not having a dig.

And, I would like to add, that ALL of the cleaners I know are on Income Support. And declare EVRY PENNY of their cash-in-hand income. Because they fear losing their Income Support if they are caught.

They can claim Income Support because ALL of them work LESS than 16 hours a week. On average, they do 2 hours a day - or 10 hours a week.

I.e. not enough to claim tax credits. So they are still ON benefits. They get to keep £20 a week of their earnings. The rest is DEDUCTED from their Income Support. So they may CLAIM Income Support,but make MORE than £87.50 a week (STILL below the Tax threshold, so NO tax or NI due), and GET NO Income Support PAID - but they claim because the claim guarantees their NI credits.

So they are actually WORKING for ALL of their Income Support money, getting nothing from the state except their NI contributions.

Which means that this scheme ISN'T 'neutral'. It is PURELY a benefit forthose that can AFFORD to have a cleaner or a gardener.

It is actually WORSE for those DOING the cleaning.

As you were.

'Actually making childcare tax deductible is such a middle-class preoccupation. Would the gal serving at WH Smith benefit from tax deductible childcare? Unlikely, I reckon. If she's serving at WH Smith on a minimum wage, the chances are she either hasn't got any children or if she has, she's benefiting from free childcare.'

Quattro - do you HONESTLY believe this GUFF?!

MOST of the people I know in NMW jobs in, say, WH Smith, have children. AND pay tax on their income.

And FREE childcare?! What planet are you FROM?! YES, she may have SUBSIDISED childcare - SUBSIDISED THROUGH Tax Credits, paying UP TO 70% of her childcare, up to a maximum paid of £210 a week IF she has 2 or more dc (You can have 4 dc and STILL only get £210 paid). If her childcare costs £300/wk, then she will get the full £210 paid for her. If her childcare is £400 a week - she will STILL only get £210 of it paid.

For a FT NMW job, you earn £11,856 BEFORE TAX.

Making childcare Tax deductible would more than likely mean that she wouldn't have to PAY tax at all.

OF COURSE IT WOULD BLOODY HELP THE LOW PAID. It would have the side effect of helping EVERYONE with children, but it would help the NMW worker MOST.

ONLY the well-off think that people only do NMW jobs for 'pin-money'. the less 'well-off' know that 90% of people working in NMW jobs are doing it to SURVIVE.

OK, the Government won't go for this - instead they go for something that would benefit ONLY the 'well-off'.

Because even if I was working FULL-TIME - there STILL wouldn't be the money to employ a cleaner. So I would have to do all the shit-work myself. Like everyone else on a low income. Giving a tax break if we hire a cleaner ISN'T going to GIVE US the money to ACTUALLY hire a cleaner, is it, FFS.

Quattro - are you REALLY that ill-informed about what it iis like for people on NMW that you think they get FREE childcare to go out to work, and that people in NMW are unlikely to have children?! If you are, then I would advise that you inform yourself about the realities of life for NMW workers. Go into a supermarket, and ask 100 members of staff whether they have children, and what it would mean for THEM to get a tax break on childcare.

Athing - yes, it's perfectly possible to disagree with the principle of public subsidy for the arts - provided one is a philistine.

Agree with all your recent posts claig.

Let us not forget that we could buy about 20 Sir Humphreys for 1 Hester - seems like an exceptionally good deal for the taxpayer to me.

And Quatrocentro - once you take into account the cost of the bailout, the financial services have made a net loss not gain. Obviously the bankers personally have done very nicely out of it. But we haven't.

Sir Humphrey without a doubt. If Sir Humphrey had been in charge we would probably have never got into the mess in the first place. Hasn't RBS's share price declined this year. If that is what counting your market worth in millions gets you, I'll take Sir Humphrey. My guess is that Sir Humphrey would have done a better job than Fred the Shred and at a fraction of the salary and pension too.

'the financial services sector is the single largest contributor to the exchequer'
Let's also not forget that it is the biggest bailout recipient from the Exchequer in all recorded history.

So, claig, who would you employ to turn around an ailing bank and make it profitable again?

A banker who can count his market value in millions?

Or a civil servant? Possibly of the Sir Humphrey variety. Would he be your man? He wouldn't be mine ...

Let's not forget, amongst all this outrage and public indignation about bankers'/wankers' bonuses, that the financial services sector is the single largest contributor to the exchequer. It's what actually funded everything the previous government spent (although obviously the previous government spent more than it earned) and it's why it was never regulated effectively.

Bank salaries have risen over the years, just like the pay of footballers has too. If the public are bailing out banks, while being denied loans themselves and being laid off due to a credit crunch caused by the lack of lending, then employees in subsidised banks should show salary restraint. Private banks which get no bailouts can pay what they like.

Financial services is a global industry - packages level out in global banks

Civil servants may be talented. Or they may not be, perhaps the civil service is a good place to hide if you're worried about cutting the mustard. If they are talented, then they know ab initio that they are forsaking a private sector income for the cut and thrust of political life.

'How many other talented people will readily go in to any institution that has an element of public ownership after that sort of unedifying display?'

What are the salaries of the top Japanese bankers and the German bankers? I bet they are less. What about public service in a partially nationalised bank? What do all our talented civil servants earn? Are they all on million pound bonuses?

This is the Hester's bonus argument all over again.

Take a hugely talented man who could readily command a £3m package. Possibly more. This is the way the world is. You recruit him to do a turnaround job on an ailing bank, and you promise him £2m. Because he's the man he is, he takes up the challenge. Then the public wade in, baying for blood and vengeance for the economy going tits up. He has to give up £1m of his package. The public thirst for blood is satisfied. He is paid a third (or less) of his market value.

How many other talented people will readily go in to any institution that has an element of public ownership after that sort of unedifying display? You'd have to be a fool.

We've all read about their annual "taxi bills" and their junkets to Glastonbury etc., all paid for by those on low incomes. Isn't it about time someone gave low earners a break and gave cleaners the opportunity to get more work.

And if we are talking about doing something productive, the cleaners do a lot more of that than some of the "stars".

I know that some of the "stars" are said to be "talented", but I prefer tax breaks for those on low incomes and to help create employment.

We also subsidise the £600,000 salaries of some BBC employees. Is that to improve the cultural life of the nation?

I would rather spend it on creating employment, accommodation for the homeless, reductions in heating and water bills and improved healthcare in hospitals.

If we are going to take about waste of money, let's not look at subsidising employment for cleaners, let's look at some of these publicly funded salaries and public subsidies.

Quattrocento - do you think it would be difficult to implement a policy like this?

What downsides could there be?

Are there any peculiarities of the Swedish model that make it incompatible with introducing this measure here?

(sorry to bombard, just glad you are back :) )

"We subsidise the arts because they are deemed to improve the cultural life of the nation ie a public good. Your cultural taste may be different but you cannot disagree with the principle. "

You don't think it's possible to disagree with the principle of public subsidy for the arts?

Can I just add, that I am not rich, but have a cleaner. I have a huge overdraft, but work full time and cannot do everything without going insane. Why is it that only the rich and middle class have any kind of domestic help. Lord - the Belgians don't fret about these things. They hire cleaners and put their kids in kindergarten with nair a worry. Probably cos it is cheap.

If I admitted at work to worrying about such things, they would think I was a bit mad/foreign.

'the foreign aid thing is a bit of a red herring'

the foreign aid shows that we are not skint, that money exists, just as it exists for the high speed rail link, the Olympics etc. The money is not being spent on the greatest need and never ever has been, so objecting to this policy on that basis should mean that you should also object to all the other non-essential spending too.

'As I said, as taxpayers we subsidise the public good, not individuals' private good.'

But the bigger picture is that the individuals are providing employment - it is employment that is the common good. We are not subsidising their plasma TVs, we are encouraging them to provide employment for some people. It is not just training that doesn't lead to a job, which we also all pay for - it is a real job.

'We subsidise the arts because they are deemed to improve the cultural life of the nation ie a public good.'

Hmmm, that's what the toffs tell us on their way to Sadler's Wells. Meanwhile there are homeless people sleeping under bridges.

claig, the foreign aid thing is a bit of a red herring. The fact that that makes no sense does not mean that this policy makes sense.

'You cannot defeat emotion with reason.'

Then how did the Tories get the largest share of the vote?