The begining of the end of independant taxation?

maranatha, that was my point, that you couldn't say that a friend of the same sex was not part of a couple, or that a friend of the opposite sex wasn't.

LilyBolero Hey the actual gender of friend doesn't enter into it- after all, lesbian and homosexual people can now (RIGHTLY) marry now, can't they?

I am married and know how much my DH earns but our finances are separate. We won't be effected by these changes as we both earn too little but I don't think it suggests a lack of commitment to not pool money jointly. We pay half of everything and whatever we have left is ours. I don't keep tabs on what useless geeky gadgets my DH buys or resent the fact that he spends his own money on these things. So long as we both continue to pay fairly for the things we share like mortgage, bills, food etc then we're both happy to keep things as they are.

So... I don't see why my wages should ever be linked to his by the government really?

Horrific. That kind of s**t is one of the (many) reasons why I believe why people should be seen as people in their own right and not on who they are sleeping with.

You are right, Riven There is an anomoly between tax and benefits system. To be cynical, the government taxes people as individuals when it comes to tax and as couples when it comes to (certain) benefits.
The truth is that they maximise the amount of money they can screw out of people this way.
Perhaps taxing couples as couples would iron out the anomoly and as long as nobody was penalised when they're asking nowt from state, I wouldn't mind.

Personally, I would like to see everybody treated as individuals in their own right. Yes, it would mean that marriage in the financial sense would cease to exist and the principle if a couple divorced would be- you get what you came with/what you can prove you came with. But I think this would be preferable.

But riven, what if you and your dh split up, and you had to move in with a friend for a bit - should their tax status affect whether you get child benefit or not? Because this is the sort of question that hasn't been answered. You might be flat-sharing, or you might be co-habiting (whether your friend is male or female).

Riven It's not odd. Why is there the assumption that living with someone always means full-on commitment? It doesn't.
It just doesn't work that way. In my youth, I lived with a couple of guys- some of them feckless. It would have horrified me to be classed as financially linked with them!

There are just too many anomalies in this ridiculous stupid policy. We all know about the single/dual income anomaly which sees a family on 45k lose child benefit whilst a family on 80k keeps it.

What about 2 single mothers. Both divorced. One receives virtually nothing from her exdh. She therefore goes out to work, earns, let's say 45k, and is a HRT payer. She also has to pay childcare costs. She loses her child benefit.

The other receives a princely sum from her ex - let's say a million pounds a year....(just for the illustration). He also pays all the childcare for her children. She doesn't work. She retains her child benefit, because maintenance payments are not taxable.

Riven AFAIK, it may be beneficial to be taxed as a couple.
But my point is this: a lot of people move in together on a casual basis not wishing to disclose financial details to the other, it happens a lot.

Seems to me this stupid bloody government are just putting out any random ideas out there and relying on the 'Sir Humphreys' of this world to point out the flaws (what's new?)

Thank you, abdnbiker, but what if two people (both in full-time employment, no children, not seeking to claim any benefits- common enough scenario) do NOT wish to combine their incomes either on principle or because they are not sure that they wish to do so yet?

Are they penalised in some way? It seems absolutely fricking ridiculous to me if they are, tbh.

Mind you if you did the single means test I think you'd end up with really huge resentment towards the people who qualified for benefits & services. I think that socially it would cause more problems than it would solve.

Child benefit was brought in to provide some income for women to look after their children, if they had a feckless or nasty husband who didn't give them any of their wages, wasn't it.

Is their evidence to show that this situation is now rare enough to warrant the abolition of this?

Abhor universal benefits?

State pension, NHS, libraries, everything?

I suppose you could have a single means test, and everyone below the threshold could access things for free / receive them and everyone else would pay/buy insurance.

It's not a suggestion I've heard before but it has a merit of simplicity and is at least coherent (unlike many of the suggestions I read on here).

I think abdn that it is actually the other way round - that men don't want/won't reveal to the woman. I do think you are right re knowing finances, my issue is more about being joint taxation being brought in by the back door and I would still argue it should be a personal choice.... If joint income taxation is to be used, then couple should also have joint access to lots of other things (pension righs, death in service etc. etc.)

marantha, if both couples work, joint taxation should still be a positive - basically you're combining the incomes and doubling the tax allowances/thresholds. It makes no difference if both people are in the same tax bracket but if one person is a higher earner and the other isn't at the higher earnings threshold, then you benefit.

Blackduck: I'm actually shocked that people don't think they should have to disclose their finances with their dp/dhs. That actually scares me - when you marry or co-habit with someone in many ways you are taking on their finances, their debt, their spending. I think it's much more of a feminist stance to insist on knowing...

But I agree that the tax system as it stands doesn't take joint finances into account and their handling of the child benefit is going to be a muddle.

what happens when you have a woman claiming CB for children who live with her, has an ex husband/partner who contributes via the CSA and a new partner/husband living with her who earns £50,000+. Who's tax do they take into consideration RE the CB?

Thanks for the patronising comment Georgimama - I was trying to have an adult discussion about it and if you don't care about it why are you on this thread? May be it doesn't affect you but it does affect an awful lot of women.

My point is my partner and I know about our income, but why is it any business of the tax system UNLESS we move to a household income system, or joint tax system which we currently do not have. The government claim they will fine people who fail to disclose this info, my question would be can you personally be fined for failing to disclose a benefit you personally are neither claiming or receiving? Seems to me they need to scrap child benefit totally and use the tax credit system instead.

That's a shame Georgimama - we could do with some half decent politicians the world over.