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????

Don't know about Sweden, but here in France you are taxed as a family.

There is no PAYE, you declare your income once a year, then receive a bill a few months later. After the first year, you can pay installments based on the previous year's amount, so it's not just one lump sum to fork out.

Basically, all the family's income is listed (both spouses/civil partners plus any income kids may have from part-time work, trust funds etc.) and then the total is divided by the number of points the family is entitled to. Each adult is 1 point, the first two kids each count for 0.5 and any further kids a whole 1 point. There are additional points for disabled children, or war-wounded adults.

The amount "per share" is then taxed, according to a sliding scale and then any tax deductions/refunds are added/subtracted on the amount payable.

So, a family, with one person earning 10K and the other 50K, with 2 kids, would have a total income of 60k and 3 points, so the net tax base would be 20K, which would probably be subject to around a 15% tax rate, so roughly ?3000. A tax refund for 50% of childcare costs and domestic employee salaries would then be deductable from this, along with other "tax-rebate" things such as installing ecologically friendly heating systems, loft insulation or double glazing...

' Look, of all the problem David Cameron has got, the most acute is that he looks, sounds and seems like a toff'

Should this type of yah boo politicking prevent Cameron from doing good things.

Apparently there is some opposition to the policy in Sweden
'Indeed in Sweden, by all accounts ? and I yield to the editor of the Spectator on this one ? the measure has its critics. They say it benefits the high earners more than the lower paid on the employers' side and it benefits migrant workers more than locals when it comes to the employees. And the same would be true in spades here ? if you know an English cleaning lady, you probably don't live in London'

Note that teh opposition is because it help the high-earners and the migrant lowest earners who do enterprising jobs that many locals won't do. Who cares if the workers are mainly migrant workers? They are earning money, providing good services and tehy will spend that money back in the economy.

And as for helping the higher earners, of course you need to help the higher earners if you want to boost employment, because the higher earners have the money (just like profitable businesses do). Someone who is skint or a business that makes no profit can't employ anyone.

What planet are you on that you don't think affordable childcare is more of an issue by a factor of about a zillion to people in the UK across the wage brackets, than tax deductible cleaners?

Aha

You are David Cameron, and I claim my £5

eg france

"Well, it works here in France - any domestic help (nanny, cleaner, gardener) has to be declared as a salaried employee (i.e. no cash in hand jobs, like in the UK), which means that as the employer you pay NI contributions etc, but get a 50% tax deduction in return."

1. childcare included
2. all treated as employees (huge change to our system)

You can't say that bolting these 2 things onto our completely different system will make us the same as eg France. It won't. It's apples and oranges.

:o

YOU want childcare, but not a cleaner?

So tax policy should be formulated based on what is best for YOU?

Um, OK.

Sorry, I thought this was about policy, not personal wishlists.

I would love tax-deductible childcare, far more than a cleaner or a gardener, but I didn't really think the way to assess public policy was to see whether it benefitted me personally and bellyache about it if it didn't.

Wow, well I guess we're done then.

I have no idea how the swedish system is run.

I imagine it is quite different from ours.

For a start I know they pay a lot more tax and have affordable childcare.

athing the fact that we have an individual tax system and this requires a family tax system?

claig I think they have the same problem with it as they do with this child benefit idea, in that UK tax is individual and these things look at families.

You would need to change the way the whole tax system works.

Swedish tax is based on families?

Really?

Are you sure?

What, in particular, is different about the UK tax system that makes this a "bolt on" when it is perfectly integrated in superior, sophisticated continental tax systems?

I'm no tax expert. The only one on this thread thinks this is a workable and good idea.

I guess you know better?

I want the childcare.

Cleaners and gardeners are not on my radar. As they are not for (I would guess) most people in the UK.

Specatator article worried about how this will go down

www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/7642498/cameron-should-leave-this-terrible-tax-breaks-for-cleaners-idea-in-sweden.thtml

Who knows if it will actually be implemented? There is an article in the rightwing Spectator against it. It is noticeable that the main reason argued against it is that it will look bad to the voters and make Cameron look "out of touch" as the Labour statement quoted earlier also said.

But forget image and votes and the predictable yah boo acting of the progressive opposition. Will it help encourage employment and self-employment and will it help middle class tax payers and encourage them to spend their money on services rather than keep it in the bank?

Is everything in politics about image, spin and yah boo or is this a postive thing to do?

Just because it doesn't include childcare doesn't mean it is a bad idea.

You would be OK with cleaners and gardeners being tax deductible if childcare was too, but not if it isn't?

Why?

The policy implemented in several european countries, is not this.

This is UK tax regime with tax breaks for hiring cleaners and gardeners bolted on.

Tax regimes across europe differ, their ways of dealing with things differ. You cannot say that taking the UK tax regime and bolting on a couple of additional breaks (which will be impossible to implement given that UK tax is based on individuals and not families) and say it brings us in line with other (better, to my mind) systems in other countries.

So on the basis of your hunch that people either have cleaners or do not, you think that a policy that has been implemented in several European social democracies is "not well thought out"?

Any evidence at all that cleaning services are not price sensitive?

I don't currently use a cleaner, but it it were tax deductible I would consider it. That's two of us on this thread alone.

Of course, given that this policy has been implemented across Europe, we could actually find out what its impacts have been, rather than just scoff at how ridiculous it is.

Sorry if you are uncomfortable that I'm picking out your posts, they just stand out for being reactionary and badly thought out.

Nannies aren't included claig. He specifically excluded childcare from the idea.

If it included childcare I'd be all over it like a rash!

Surely the main aim is to boost employment by making it cheaper to employ cleaners, gardeners, nannies etc. Many cleaning businesses started small with one employee and then grew.

It encourages self-employment and makes it cheaper for those who are able to afford these services. It's a win-win, which is probably why progressive Sweden do it.

It also eases the burden on some middle class families who voted Conservative in the first place.

Instead of just providing incentives for businesses to hire employees, this will also provide an incentive for individuals to do so as well.

It's not going to solve all the country's problems, but it is at least something to encourage employment.

I'd be well up for the restaurants thing though. And the drugs.

Sorry first bit should say IME people either have them or they don't IYSWIM.

I suppose at the root of this is that some people will have a cleaner, whatever, and some people just won't. Some people feel it is a necessary essential thing and some people feel uncomfortable at the thought of someone else doing this type of work for them.

I know lots of people who have cleaners and lots who don't. There isn't a correlation with income. It's a strange sort of thing.

I just don't see this resulting in much change in how many people have cleaners, I don't understand how the 20% tax is made up for by a bunch of people who may well be under the tax threshold anyway, I don't think anyone can say for sure that cleaning is a huge specific problem with tax evasion (more than, say, building) and all the rest of it. I don't get it, it doesn't seem to add up or make sense.

SQ - I agree the decision for a one off service and a longterm relationship are different. But if the 20% discount (or whatever) was long term then it would influence decisions eg: to have a cleaner, to have them once a fortnight or once a week etc...

Soz just read the article again
It is families (how are they going to administer it? People are taxed individually in the UK)

So scrap the gym
But the point about haircuts / meals out vs cleaner still stands.

Otherwise known as "moving to sweden"

"If it means more women can outsource the drudge work they are expected to do for free, I'm all for it."

Erm who are they outsourcing it too? Other women, in the main.

So not sure how this is a feminist victory.

Cleaners are also generally paid less than gardeners, which is interesting from a feminist perspective.

A real feminist victory (in the context of this thread and in response to that very aggressive "shitbags" comment) would be:

Doing something about affordable childcare
Having a society in which all members of a household do their fair share of running that household

athing you didn't answer my questions and you are picking my posts out for some reason which makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

Yes I can see people being encouraged to go to a restaurant or have a hair cut if there was a 20% discount. Restaurants and hair salons often have discounts of this type. It's a one off cost - maybe you normally go out once every couple of months and now you go out once a month. Hairdressers ditto - maybe you get 4 haircuts a year instead of 3. These are things that these types of businesses offer anyway as they know they work.

The gym - thinking about it maybe less so. I guess I know lots of people who are gym members but don't have cleaners? Throughout my working career the younger people have all had gym memberships but none of them had cleaners. Amongst parents I guess it would be different. But this isn't for parents, is it, it's being mooted as a tax break for everyone - which includes young single people, people who are divorced, older people whose children have left home, everyone. More likely to spend on restaurants and gyms than cleaners, surely?

Also with a cleaner / gardener there is the long term commitment aspect. People don't enter into these things lightly. Not as lightly as they do going out for a meal once a month say.