Tory Marriage Tax - makes me feel a bit icky

Agree with Abra1d

I think it is incredibly unreasonable that married couples are not allowed to transfer their tax allowances to each other.

If the state recognises the partnership (which it does, to the financial detriment of married couples of some cases) then it should allow families the maximum flexibility in terms of managing their finances.

If unmarried couples want to avail of this advantage, then they can get married. Obviously this accommodation should extend to people in Civil Partnerships.

I'm not really sure what this has to do with single people tbh.

I utterly fail to see how it can be construed as misogynistic.

this policy idea, no firm commitment, is here to please the core tory vote plain and simple
am sure a few on emigration and Europe will follow

So a married couple without children or a wife-beating alchoholic husband and father would get a tax break, while a very committed stable co-habiting couple with 3 children would not?

I would support a tax break for working parents, but to discriminate between stable committed co-habiting couples and those who are married is a moral decision not a practical social position, or a financially determined one.

It sounds like more of Cameron's woolly, generalised non-policy-making to me.

Icky - yes.

I'm with abra!d.

Oh I see... So abra1d will make an exception for someone known to (presumably) her but the rest of us are should be married because we have children? Sounds a teeny bit hypocritical to me!

Having come from a marriage where my father was/is an alcoholic and regularly beat the crap out of my mother, I'd say we'd have been better off out of it. It being the 1960s/70s there was nowhere for my mum to go. But, of course, marriage must be best mustn't it?!

This is one of the single most pointless and misogynistic policies ever. Who normally gets left with the children when a relationship breaks down? Who has to work their backsides off to keep their children properly? Oh yes, that would be the woman.

Tory fuckwittage at its best.

But that's comparing marriage to all other relationships in which there are children. You need to compare marriage to all successful committed relationnships where there are children to determine the effect of marriage, surely? A like for like comparison in which marriage is the only differing factor.

It's even more arbitrary than that (unless I'm thinking of something else).

The idea seems to be to reward couples who can afford for one of them to stay at home, whether that's to look after children or not.

If you can afford for one partner not to work, and are living in the sanctity of marriage you win a tax break.

Those who are both working can go and stand in the sin bin with the rest of the feckless - unmarried couples and single parents.

Shame on us!

'certainly isn't one that should be the default'

Disagree. I think if you want to have children you should be married, unless you have very, very good reasons not to be (like my cousin, who can't marry her partner because his parents are Croat lunatics who think that anyone who's not Croatian is bad). Countless surveys show that children in married families do better. The tax and benefit system should reward desired behaviours.

I'm not sure what the point is execpt to make the unmarried/single parents feel excluded. And tax breaks should be regarding the cost of having children regardless of whether or not the parents are married. Why would childless marrieds need a tax break? Anyway, teh tories won't even say what their policy on this is yet. Another tory policy vacuum.