tax credits and queens speech ?

haha never

I am worried about people on incapacity though, I have a relative with serious mental health problems who has never done paid work. However, he has done massive amounts of work for charity. he is just not reliable enough for paid work.

The point is when you get used to something you begin to rely on it. People managed before universal child benefit was introduced but if that was to be cut then many people would be screwed/up in arms.

I think an awful lot of people will struggle if they are suddenly cut, people at the low income and lower end of the middle incomes..

Alot of people won't be able to afford childcare etc. i also worry that they will cut it for lone parents who are working 16 hours a week and make them work full time.

Also, they are going against their manifestos (Lib Dem and Cons) if they suddenly scrap it.

Im a nursery nurse but work for a charity and earn well above what is average for the job but my childcare bill is still more than I earn even before I pay tax, ni and pension contributions. If tax credits were abolished or the levels fall too much as a single mother I would have to give up work and would have to claim income support.

I wouldn't be the only one meaning that there would be nurseries and childminders having to close. All it would take in a baby room is to loose 3 full time under 2s and not to be able to fill the spaces and that's one member of staff being made redundant. If tax credits are abolished even if just for the so called middle earners I would love to know what they are planning to do about childcare costs. My boss was saying the other day that the plan is to increase the free sessions to over 18 months, but 15 hours of free sessions isn't that much of a help when you work full time, or you have school aged children.

Im very worried about my job at the moment which is a shame because I love it, but a lot of middle earners already cant afford to use us full time and use us part time and other child care such as grandparents for the rest of the time.

Tax credits shouldn't be necessary at all.

They've enabled the minimum wage to be applied to jobs that would have been subject to market fluctuations and values.

Employers need to pay "proper" salaries then we wouldn't have the housing gap and we wouldn't need tax credits. The Labour Govt have made too many people reliant on credits rather than forcing employers to pay the market rate.

Cam and Clegg need to withdraw from the concept of subsidising salaries and let the market set the rate.

Why didn't Clegg just say we'll cut tax credits for those earning over £25k, which is what he planned? What do you call that if it's not lying? Being economical with the truth perhaps? He used all kinds of grand phrasing rather than just spelling it out.

Why bother having TV debates if the public can't take what the potential leaders are saying at face value?

He lied, I don't care how you want to dress it up anastaisia, he had the perfect platform and the ideal opportunity to tell the electorate what he had planned and he refused to do it. He looked down the camera, talking directly to the electorate and purposefully misrepresented his policy. That's lying in my book.

Thing is, you're trying to claim they lied. But those figures were in the public domain. I found them in a two minute google search. The Lib Dem manifesto said they would restrict tax credits.

In the debate Clegg said this about tax credits:
"Why don?t we say not for the top 20% of recipients?"

Now I don't know about you - but that implies quite a big cut to me. Not as though he's gone out of his way to make people think they're going to keep as many people getting tax credits as they can.

Unrelated to the debates, but something I just found on google; apparently a third of tax credit spending goes on the the top 50% of earners, with the poorest 20% of earners only getting 18% of tax credit spending. Now I assume that's partially because they don't claim as much childcare, but it still sounds incredibly unfair if true.

Indeed Cat64, I discussed it at length on here myself.

I did pore over the details with a fine toothcomb, I did know that Cameron and Clegg were being economical with the truth. What they said on those debates didn't tally with what was being said elsewhere.

I'm not surprised at what is happening but I can't agree that Clegg and Cameron were upfront about the cuts prior to the election. They deliberately mislead the viewers during those debates, but then they are politicians.

Yes and I'm sure every member of the voting public scoured that document to see exactly what was being proposed.

I take it you didn't watch the debates? You know, the ones where Dick Clameron fobbed us all off with their double talk? Gordon Brown told us all what they had planned, he was called a liar.

this was published in April 2010 so the figures were available in advance.

Is it not the case that the increase to the tax threshold is incremental, reaching £10k by 2015?

I wonder if they'll be cutting tax credits by increments also?

anastaisia, that article is a BBC news piece, 2 days prior to the general election.

Did you watch the televised debates for the 3 weeks leading up to the GE? Did you hear what came out of the mouths of Clegg and Cameron? I'm fairly certain I didn't hear them make admissions to the cuts mentioned in that article.

In fact, Cameron consistently referred to the £50k figure, Clegg waffled on about how someone on an MPs salary was entitled to tax credits.

They lied, changed their minds, told half truths whatever you want to call it. They certainly didn't make their intentions clear to the electorate.

oh, and although the Conservative plans to scrap the NIC for employees is gone the Lib Dem tax threshold raise is coming in.

So won't families be better off as the article says?

Tax credits: Are family budgets under threat?

oh, those highly secret plans...

I did some calculations and a family on 32K with 5 kids could get £5758.12 a year. that may be about £100 a week. That is alot to lose....

Even if they gain £700 a year or even £2000 in new tax benefits, they still lose quite alot.

The money is all gone and we are in a terrible position

Indeed Riven, they may as well write them all with invisible ink.

Makes me wonder why they bother wasting all that paper, whilst going on about their 'green' credentials.

anastaisia, the increase in the tax threshold might well have made the difference neglible, but then old Cleggy got into bed with Cameron and they put up employees NI anyway!

I watched all three televised debates, that £31k figure was never mentioned. Nick Clegg went on about cutting it for high earners. Does he really think a joint income of £31k constitutes high earners?

We'll see how it all pans out and who is better off/worse off, but you can't pretend that Clegg or Cameron were open about these cuts prior to election.

Chil - is that really true about the net income thing? It would explain why my child element of tax credits goes up when my nursery fees go up - have been wondering that for years!

It would make a huge difference to us as we earn just over 50,000 but have an annual childcare bill of 15k

that's not true wubbly

There was a piece on the BBC website that worked through examples taking into account the parties other proposals. One used the Lib Dem £31k figure.

It showed that on that income, the loss of tax credits would be made up by the rise in the tax thresehold and they'd be better off.

Not sure on the Tory figures, but again, it worked out examples at the salary that would trigger the changes and I think it did show a small decrease in overall income but it was only tiny because they would have stopped the NIC rises.

So it wasn't like these were big secrets.

Funny how all these lower figures come out now, after the election. The tories and lib dems both denied outright that anyone with a salary of under £40K would be affected.

Promises, fucking promises.