Tory Marriage Tax - makes me feel a bit icky

I completely do not see a problem with the tax break for married couples. It does not in any way shape or form exclude single parents, as they gets single parent benefits.
As for all those unmarried and committed couples with children, the question should be, if you are so happy and committed and raising children why NOT get married?
If you think that a marriage certificate is just a piece of paper, then it won't make any difference to you anyway - get it and get tax breaks.
If you think that marriage is more than just a a formality then why are you not doing it?

I've been with my partner 10 years we are not married, nor have any plans to do so in the near future, how exactly would my children do better if we were married?

I don't get this policy. I accept that statistics show that marriage is beneficial in all sorts of ways. But a marriage that is entered into just because of the tax breaks is not going to have the same beneficial effects as a marriage that is entered into because the couple wanted to get married regardless of the financial effects.

In other words, you can't bribe people into getting married and expect them to behave in the same way as people who didn't have to be bribed to get married.

Maybe the tories would say... this isn't a bribe, we're not trying to persuade people to get married by this. But in that case what's the point?

It doesn't affect you at all, as the Tories haven't been elected yet, and if they do get power then they won't be able to afford to do anything anyway.

Oh can someone please explain in laywoman terms how this affects me as I am getting married in the summer!

The problem here is that the Tories brought in independent taxation of married women which meant that everyone has their own tax free allowance. I don't use mine (except to claim back my tax from GCSE marking) as I have accompanied dh abroad on an HM Govt posting and thus am an SAHM.

The issue here seems to be that if you are a SAHP (in whatever family set up) you should be allowed to transfer your tax free allowance to your working partner if you choose. The election to do so should be made every year, so if I won the Euromillions and had stacks of bank interest (in my dreams), then I could choose which would be more financially advantageous, to let dh keep the allowance, or use it to get my interest tax free.

There is no need to tie this to married or not, or income levels; it is just wanting in my case to be able to utilise my tax free allowance to my best advantage.

I think it's icky (unfair), especially the bit about being able to transfer tax allowances which - as far as I observe - would probably only benefit families where there is one high earning parent. (generally, where the father or mother earns a modest amount, both parents have to work). There are of course, exceptions, and I apologies to those people who live modestly on one income.

Would you have to give back the money if you got divorced?

And, imagine if your philandering husband left you for another woman whom he married. They would get the benefits and you wouldn't.

Or, perhaps the tories are only proposing it for your first marriage. It seems riddled with moral complication!

of course it's 'icky'. (look, why don't you use the adult word 'unfair' instead of silly childspeak just because you are a mum. stop giving us a bad name). Children don't understand the word 'marriage' or 'respectability', so why should benefits apply only to the ones whose parents are married ? If mums care about children, they should care about all children and whether their parents are married or not is irrelevent to them. and if you don't think you should care about all children, remember that your child will have to grow up amongst all the others, so it's in all our interests that all children are treated with respect.

Elitist dual parent generated research and policies are increduously biased.

Whilst misogynistic reporting would have us believe that single and lone parents are products of insiduous communities made up of those 'on the take' with an agenda to bring down civilised society, current research shows this to be a myth - along with the witch hunt mentality that posits that marriage produces stable kids. (As an example please consider that Adolf Hitler was the product of a 'stable marriage', as are the vast majority of UK prisoners.)

Very most single/lone parents were once married. Their exit from this institution happens as a result of death, infidelity, cruelty, disability, illhealth and incompatability etc. Tax breaks are highly unlikely to alter this; hence the ludicrousness of the proposal and the highlighting of the proposers distance from the diverse life of the populous.

Parliament really does need a greater representation of single/lone parents.

I side with BelleDameSanaMerci fully, this policy was developed by people with no experience of living off a tiny budget or from a "broken home" my parents divorced when i was 10 and my mum recently divorced again from an abusive relationship, plunging her and her 3 children officially back into poverty which we had been in for all but two years of our lives. And yet i am at the local state grammar school in sixth form and am set for 4A's and 2B's for my AS-levels, i prove your statistics wrong and am infuriated by the ignorance of this policy!

Whilst countless studies may show children with married parents 'do better' how can that be an argument to shower financial bonuses on those parents, whilst denying single parents and co-habitating couples?

Anyway if the kiddies with married parents "do better", then perhaps the kids with unmarried parents would be better off with a little more money spent on them.

The whole 'policy' is quite ludicrous and baffling and I don't even think it's a policy anymore.

Families do need support - but it should be for all families, not just those who have married. Some of the most despicable people I've ever known have been married!

Icky is a great way of putting it. It's uncomfortable & wrong.

If it wouldn't apply to couples in Civil Partnerships then it is deeply discriminatory.

I know two gay couples in a civil partnership who have children - if this tax is purported to be about supposting family life for children, then they need to be included.

And LOL at the reaction if all married people get the tax break (regardless of parental status) and therefore all gay couples in civil partnerships get it too.

Bet that will go down well with the middle england moral majority

I am going to sign off this thread as I think we're not actually discussing anything anymore. I do care about other individuals but I don't think that means that a current flaw in the tax system can't lead to careful changes. As monkeyfeathers has said much better than myself (thank you), this to me is not rewarding marriage but acknowledging family income for tax purposes as well as for tax credits. And before I go away, I just want to say that as one of the people defending this proposal, I would be more than happy for it to be extended beyond marriages and civil partnerships to any family unit regardless of marital status.

And other widows?

And other women not married, with children, whose partners die?

do we want the tax system to disadvantage them? do we think that's desirable, because the benefits of rewarding marriage outweigh the injustice of a financial sanction against those not married?

HerBeatitude this is something I am able to comment on, as my husband does a job more dangerous than most and there have been unfortunately more than a few deaths this year. In awareness of this, he's well insured. If he was to die, I wouldn't need to worry about the small amount of benefit I would miss out on as a single parent instead of a dual parent household. (Though I've lost a lot of sleep worrying about how I'd emotionally cope, especially when he's away with work.) This type of extreme case is not relevant to the current discussion.

As for our soldiers - if their wives/husbands are not well supported by a combination of insurance and pensions, then this is criminal and I would happily campaign on their behalf. But this is such a different order of magnitude to a few hundred pounds a year.

Surely the financial difficulties of the war widow (who is also the most emotive case I can think of) should be addressed through specific benefits for widows and financial schemes provided by the MOD. I don't know what currently exists, but this would seem the way to help out women in this situation.

In any case, setting the emotive aspects aside, the only difference is that her personal allowance is taken into consideration in the taxation on the family income (if she's a SAHP) while her husband is alive. After she is widowed she retains her tax allowance but she loses her husband (and his income). Frankly, the loss of her husband is the real problem here, as it would be for any widow whatever her husband's profession happened to be.

Sorry to be so cold about it all, but I really don't think picking out whatever emotive examples one can think of is all that helpful.

Earlier on it was reported on the news that the Daily Mirror's correspondent in Afghanistan had been killed. He has a 14 month old baby (as well as another child, I think).

It instantly occurred to me (because of this thread) that under these plans, his wife would lose her married person's tax allowance, because er, she's no longer married. As would all the other wives, of all the soldiers who are being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sorry I just can't get over this. HOW are the Tories proposing to recognise the greater expenses and difficulties, associated with having children for ALL families, not just married ones? Onagar, your suggestion that a debate is to be had aabout whether single people should support children is a good one - are we going to decide as a society, that getting married is more valuable than having children and recognise that in the tax system?

Sorry, that should read 'each married household might benefit from the pooling of tax allowances'.

The abandoned wife would also benefit from the same pooling again if she were to remarry. If she doesn't remarry, she'd still be entitled to her own personal allowance in calculating the taxation for her single person household.

The floosey only managed to steal her husband, she didn't steal the abandoned wife's personal allowance.

I don't really think polly tonybee's example is all that relevant, to be honest. Emotive, yes. But it's not really relevant to the pooling of tax allowances for married couples.

The poor abandoned wife is going to suffer financially, practically and emotionally no matter how the inland revenue calculates taxation. That's a simple fact. The husband-stealing floosey is going to benefit financially (and probably practically and emotionally) from getting married too because that's how these things go (at least until the feckless husband leaves her for an even younger model). Each household (and the feckless husband, because he is part of both households) might benefit from the pooling of tax allowances when calculating taxes for the household. However, that would depend on which partners are working in each marriage.

The only difference is that currently the tax allowances of any SAHP in either marriage are not taken into consideration when calculating taxes on the household income while under the Tory proposals they would be.

We're only talking about savings on the tax payable on that personal allowance here, not a 'bonus' of the entire allowance itself too.

I still think it may well be a sensible proposal, given that marriage (and civil partnership) are a very practical way of determining what counts as a legal household. I'd prefer that all sides would cease with the moralising about it though.

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FWIW: I am not, and have never been, married. I was a single-parent to DS1 for many years until I met DP and we shacked up and had DS2. I work full-time and DP will do so too once he finds himself a proper job. This means that I am arguing for a policy from which I am unlikely to ever benefit, even if I were to get married.

And I'm not talking about whether it should apply only to only couples with children - that's a whole different question.

At the risk of being totally utterly flamed - here goes, and this is a genuine question that has always bugged me - why is it wrong in principle that this tax break would only be for married couples (and, as I believe it should be, those in civil partnerships?) I can never understand the argument that a piece of paper doesn't matter in a committed relationship. If it was that committed you'd surely be prepared to get that piece of paper to give yourself, and any children of the marriage, more security and better legal rights.

Can someone who isn't married explain to me why they don't want to do this, and why they still feel they should get all the rights of those that do. And I'm not talking about getting married in church or anything like that, just the basic legal commitment.

It's like that couple who got themselves on the news by trying to demand a civil partnership instead of a marriage. There is a civil partnership for opposite sex couples and it's called marriage! What on earth is wrong with that?!

The WAY they seem to want to do it (officially married only) is almost certainly wrong.

As for the idea of the single people supporting the children of those who choose to have them (which I suppose already happens with child benefit) I'm not entirely sure about that. It might be right or it might be wrong. I reckon I could make a convincing argument for either side.

Maybe there should be a national debate on that basic principle before they go working out a way to do it with tax.

I think that's my main problem with it. As I said earlier down the thread, I do think the work SAHMs do, ought to be recognised in the tax system, but I have a major objection to childless couples getting a tax break at the expense of single people with or without children. I just don't see why they should. If I thought the Tories were going to go through the options and do something complex which compensated those who aren't married, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. And I still don't know if it will apply to civil partnerships! (If it does, it will really piss off the blue rinse segment of Tory voters.)

I'm sorry I ever replied to the issue about divorce... it's not something I have personal experience with and I should always keep my mouth shut when I'm not well-informed.

But, the fundamental issue for me is that the tax structure should take into account the number of dependents. Children are accounted for with child benefit (which is more generous that I think this tax allowance will work out to be). No matter how you look at it, I am (financially) dependent on my husband and this is currently not included in any way in the taxation structure. I guess that's my main and final point and I'll stick with it. How this could be implemented to ensure that no one is disadvantaged is another story (enhanced childcare support for single parents?).

Good point about civil partnerships.

Personally I can't see how a committed relationship is made better by a bit of paper.

Then again it might work better if the couple were religious and believed god wanted it to work. So perhaps it should be only those married in a 'proper' church.