URGENT - need your views on Budget for Radio 5 interview at 11pm tonight

yeah listening to carrie right now!

Go Carrie!

oo, oo, ooo, we're on!

i suppose we are better off than many people but the child benefit is an important part of my income.any increases most welcome.as for the child tax credit. we just get the basic amount and not the working parent part, but would notice a big difference without it.

what about 'hard-working' families who have to finance their kids through University?

I'm listening. When are we on?

oh yes my other bugbear. I don't want them giving money to my children for them to shove up their noses when they turn 18. I would rather it be earmarked for University or flat/house deposits, that kind of thing.

M

do you know Carrie, I would rather they put the child benefit increase into our schools to feed our children properly. The miniscule amount a week that they want to give me won't make much difference, but if it goes into a school kitchen it would make a world of difference.

Mars

i agree soapbox, would be good for them to give schools MORE money to provide better food. Get rid of the profit making catering companies and let local councils provide cooks etc to do the 'home made' options!!

1. Child trust fund - the idea I believe is to get us to add to the govts £250. Yeah, right - how many of us are going to put money into an account which will be in the entire control of child at 18. If you're dead rich, then you might give them a trust fund to spend at 18. But for most parents, I can't believe that at you'd trust child not to blow money on holidays and drink! If the idea is, as I believe, to save money for education, first house deposit etc, then I think vast majority of parents would want to retain control of money themselves. Not possible with trust fund that the Govts generous (?) £250 has to be invested in.

2. Child tax credits. I've not had the trauma's of others with overpayments and IR reclaiming money. But the whole system does seem fundamentally flawed. Any given years claim is based on last years income and this years nursery costs. But of course, this is the period when both those figures are constantly changing. IE. First year based on your full time income and maybe a small period of nursery fees? Yet in that year, you'll be on maternity leave and not earning. So second year based on very limited income of previous year when you were on maternity leave and also therefore no/limited nursery fees. But by then you are both back at work and paying lots of nursery fees. Then next year based on full income and lots of nursery fees - when you're back on maternity leave with no. 2 and no 1 not in nursery to save money. And it goes on and on!

Hope I'm not too late!

I think it would be worth pointing out that feeding our children junk at school dinners is an absolute disgrace and it is time that they made a decent amount of money available to fund better nutrition at school.

Additionally there should be punative taxes levied on the producers of said crap food - god knows they make enough money out of folk shovelling this junk into the mouths of their children!

I'd like to see an end to universal child benefit. There should be a cut off point and any 2 parent family, or lone parent family, with an annual income in excess of £100k should not be entitled to it. State assistance should only extend to people on lower incomes. £100k cannot be argued to constitute a low income. I'm being very generous with this sealing. Ideally it would be £50k but I know that would never wash.

I'm sure there are an awful lot of high earners who don't claim the benefit for one reason or another but this is not the point - they shouldn't be given the opportunity to claim it in the first place.

Revenue freed up by disentitling the high earners in this way should be used to fund larger child benefit payments to those families on low to moderate incomes.

Child benefit is supposed to do that - benefit children. My son's child benefit money is used each week to supplement the family income to provide the necessities of life. How many families let the money back up in accounts and then use it for heaven knows what - private education, mum's gym membership or dad's green fees? If families need this money to provide the basic necessities of life on a day to day, weekly or monthly basis then that it adequate proof of a need for it - if they can simply let this money back up in a bank account and view it as "extra" money that they sometimes forget they have then they evidently don't really need it.

End this scandalous waste of scarce public money now!

Also didn't say: about blinkin time on the extra money for FE. FE has been drained of resources over the last 20 years because it is not the acceptable vote winning side of education (who wants to fund a load of spotty teenagers doing practical courses when we can give 5 year olds more computers?). I'm very impressed with that.

On the whole though I think it's a pretty good budget for families - especially those who really need the money.

IMO the Child Trust Fund is a complete waste of time and money. I'd much rather save for ds1 and ds2 in an ordinary bank account where I can decide when they should have access to it.

Child Benefit is something we rely on to get by each month. A whole £2 a month extra for ds1? Whoopeedoo! I don't know what to rush out and spend it on first(!).

I'd like to see a system where SAHPs can allocate their personal tax alowance to their spouse. Any recognition of SAHPs would be nice in fact.

Tax relief on childcare would be great - I am self employed and it would make a big difference. I can't claim childcare vouchers. You can claim for all sorts of stuff against tax, why not the one thing that enables me to actually do the work?

However child tax credit is a good thing and helps those who need it most. But it's horrendously difficult to claim, the form and explanatory notes are almost unintelligible, and as with most benefits or credits, if you're self employed it's difficult to assess your earnings until the following april, they may vary wildly from year to year so I have a mammoth job re-claiming every year. (This is the case with most benefits such as maternity allowance etc - they don't seem to think of the self employed!)

Agree child trust fund is a bit of a gimmick. It's nice to have the £250 or whatever, but I would like to be able to invest it in savings plans I have already taken out for my child, not open yet another one!

I am right behind the investment in schools - I think it's beginning to make a big difference.

I have briefly skimmed whats been said & again I echo the comments about childcare. Costs are ridiculous - we have a DS who is now 4 (school starts Sept) & we both work full time - our choice. If we had 2 kids in childcare it would probably mean that I couldn't afford to work which is a silly situation (& I earn a reasonable amount).
Tax Credit seems to be full of problems - DH is self employed & therefore has variable income - so the forms are a nightmare & we have just had a letter saying we owe them money!
Best of luck !

good luck with it Carrie!

rise in child tax credit would in theory be good for us but... they made such a balls up with overpaying us that we will currently be paying it back for the next 10 years... so I suppose now we'll just be paying it back a little quicker... but I'd support anything in line with earnings in principle (our generation will all be feeling it by the time we get to retirement). My experience with CTC, however, is that it makes Child benefit look wonderful!

I think the IT in schools programme has made some spectacular differences. But everyone's concern is that IT is a long-term maintentance cost, not just a capital one.

Child Trust Fund makes me mad .. I think the best place to invest in the long term is the stock market but they have this ridiculous 'stakeholder' scheme thing where they say the fees can't go over 1.5%

so say I chose to invest in a standard tracker fund (computer tracks the stock market, not actively managed), my DD's investment would get hit by a 1.5% management fee .. compare this to my own tracker investments with a managment fee of 0.5% and you see the problem

when you call companies to discuss it directly they won't make a decision till end of the year (Legal & General) about whether they'll take them anyway

Stamp Duty - good that its risen but its not high enough - there was a recent article in (dare I say it) The Mail who reported that the Halifax stated that the level needed to be set at around £156,900 (I started a thread about it)

The whole stamp duty thing really gets me - its legalised robbery imho. If all house prices have risen (anyone want to argue about that?) then the thresholds should have risen at each stage.

I'm just waiting for the increases in Income Tax and more stealth taxes to pay for all his pre-election giveaways.

I am very pleased he hasn't given in to the baying mob over inheritance tax. It may affect 95%, but the vast majority of those would have sold the house anyway (to split the value between siblings) and only have to pay the tax on the value above the threshold. As far as I'm concerned, it's free money so they should damn well pay the tax.

Increases in tax credits etc - v good. one of the best things this govt have done.

If he makes childcare tax deductable, I'll probably be able to persuade dh to come home

Was hoping they would introduce tax relief on childcare for everyone, not just those people whose workplace decide to go for a voucher scheme.

Agree that they would be better off sorting out the massive problems the IR are having in sorting out claims rather than increasing amounts!! Many of us who are entitled are not recieving money we are due!!

WOW when i started my message there was only carries original message