Child benefit changes - what do you think?

[KateMumsnet]

Next week, the Inland Revenue will write to 1.2m families about upcoming changes to child benefit eligibility. The changes mean that from next January, single-income families earning more than £50,000 per year will no longer be eligible for the full amount (currently worth £1,055 for the first child) - and those earning over £60K will no longer receive it at all.

The changes are controversial. Dual-income families who both earn just below the 50K cut-off - who have, in other words, a family-income of just under £100K per year - will continue to receive the full amount, leading to criticism that the changes penalise both stay-at-home mothers and single parents. Accountants are warning that new partners of divorced parents could also lose out. And the entire process is so complicated - with families forced to fill out complex self-assessment forms for the first time - that the Inland Revenue has reportedly postponed sending out the letters because they can't find a form of words that families will be able to understand.

What do you think? Will you be affected by the changes, and what will it mean for your family? Are stay-at-home mothers being unfairly targeted - or is staying at home a luxury which shouldn't be subsidised by the taxpayer? Should child benefit be universal - or should it be available only to families who are really struggling? Let us know what you think here on the thread, and don't forget to post your URLs if you blog on this subject - we'll be tweeting them over the next few days.

I spoke to someone who said a bit of Government was paying £13000 for a construction job he would normally charge £800 for.

But in the good old days that wouldn't have happened because councils employed their own workers to do construction. They got decent working conditions and added to the economy simply by being employed. Privatisation of public services has been the cause of the recent rise in public debt, not public services per se.

The govt overpayment is true. If the HT at my daughters school wants work doing he is supposed to go through a council link which is very expensive so he uses parents association money instead which allows them to choose who does the job and cuts the price down considerably.

After reading this thread I actually went on the benefits calculator and found that I would be £460 a month worse off if I had no job tomorrow and that does not include coach travel for my kids to school at 850 per year free school meals dentistry prescriptions etc. I live in the Midlands so not in London and therefore am quite confident tha as things stand if I got made redundant tomorrow I would easily manage. However I really enjoy my work and would probably get bored if I did not work plus the pension and potential shard schemes would be much better in the longer term when kids are older and the benefits go down.

lt, better off or worse off if you work?

Better to work even with loss of half child benefit and far better for the future, kids aspirations and self esteem.

I think so too losing trust. You set a good example to your kids and also there are lots of benefits of being in the workplace. Friendship, sense of achievement, pension, free food (honestly),

I know some work places are better than others and it is hard when they are ill or in primary with another training day.

My letter has just arrived and now I have to opt out of Child Benefit. DH on just over £60k, me on very little. Household income has got to be the only FAIR way to do this. Feeling so unfairly treated when people on £99k can keep theirs. Cross! Cross! Cross! I feel weepy just filling in the form Certainly don't want to send it in.

and this is the answering email you get, " Thank you for your request (not) to receive Child Benefit payments. Child Benefit Office will aim to action your request before 7 January 2013 and will write to you once processed." My request not to!!!!!!! I thought you could only request something you wanted to do?

What are these forms people are filling in? I won't get one as I'm self employed.

Are we not advising you keep the child benefit and then have it clawed back on the tax return. In that case what are saying on the reply to the form? Why not just say I want to keep the benefit and have iit paid back later if it is necessary to pay it back once we know the income for that tax year?

I am keeping it. What happens if your income drops due to redundancy?

yep - or if your 60k earning husband buggers off with his secretary. if i was a sahm married to a hrt payer i'd be keeping it and letting them sort it with their tax.

Good point Swallowed. I'd there not also an implications for state pensions if you don't get it although the previous poster does have a small job so may already be paying enough NI.

yes i think women need to think carefully and find out where they stand. i know everyone thinks their marriage is not of the half that will end in divorce but people need to think contingency plans.

The only down side of taking it and then having to pay it back is if you will not have it at the time you come to have to pay it back and a bit of admin. It seems there are lots of good reasons to claim it.

The Telegraph has some examples today - a whole page on it including the woman with children from a previous marriage whose ex pays nothing and is living with a new partner on £60k (wife earns nothing, no income excpet CB), that second husband is also supporting his first family. Because he lives with a woman who has no money but he earns £60k his second wife loses the CB. Mind you that might be just the kick up the bottom she needs not to be a leech and actualy get out there and earn her own money like the rest of us I suppose - that might be the silver lining in the cloud and we could trumpet the change as - "Cameron supports feminists and working mothers"

that would be xenia's brand of feminism rather than 'feminism' tbf.

Mine is the same anyone - that men and women should be treated equally by the law and have fairness at home something many people on the planet and even in the UK do not yet have and the more housewives we have the less chance we have of even achieving that basic ideal.

still dont understand if you lose pension rights as a SAHP if you stop claiming... youngest is 9, should i claim til he's 13? we really dont want to do a tax return if we can possibly avoid it...

The lunatic have taken over

common, some people have said if you have ever been registered for it and had it then you keep getting the pension rights - his is for those who choose not to work and are parents - many of us losing the benefit are full time working single mothers as I am. I think some have quoted from the HMRC website on that.

If you had a new baby now and never registered for CB there may be a pensions issue in losing the credit. I don't trust the state one iota to get NI credits right at all and I would suggest it would be far better to keep claiming even if that means the higher earner hasto fill in a tax return. Tax returns are dead easy. They are on line and it does not take long. You fioll in the amount yhou earn, the mount of other income you receive eg building society interest. Higher rate tax payers are already obliged by law to declare that interest on a tax return anyway. You can also claim back higher rate tax on any charity contrbiutions you make on the tax return which some people never bother to do as they don't do a return so you mgiht even find you gain more b ack than you lose although unlikely in most cases.

I do a tax return online every year and it takes me about thirty minutes. All you need if you are employed is your p60, p11d and details of pension counts etc. It is interesting that many people do not claim higher rate tax relief on personal pensions etc now and they will get this if they do a tax return so more money may actually be going out in tax relief on pensions and tax admib than they actually save on child benefit.

Just want to say that I found Xenia's calculations fascinating.

Agree with many points made here. In particular that it should be based on household income.

DH and I earn almost identical amounts and will be losing CB, which I think is probably the right thing. I rang HMRC last week and they will stop it from early Jan. Yes, it could be paid and then repaid, but life is too short, and it won't benefit me in any way.

Thanks. I've always thought £50k before tax in today's system where the low paid are paid rent ( we would qualify for £20k of housing benefit alone - a vast sum if I chose not to work as a single mother here), council tax benefit, tax credits, unemployment benefits is not too different from what a single mother has who doesn't work.

My answer of course is to ensure women and particularly teenage daughters of mumsnetters are directed towards careers as leading surgeons, actuaries, bankers, accountants and the like where they may easily make £100k so they don't need to hide out on credit crunch threads but it is unfair that we don't make work pay unless and until you get to that sort of level.

twenty thousand of child benefit?? not a chance.

Housing benefit £20,800 where I live whichi s not even Central London. It's ridiculous. If I needed state aid we shoudl be shoved into a one bed flat for a short pain ful period which forced us to make supreme efforts to get work again.

but you don't live in a house with £20,800 rent do you xenia. you have a mortgage presumably. and very few people on benefits would have ever have been able to get themselves into such a house.

you insist on comparing extremes as if they were norms which is essentially social shit stirring put bluntly and really irresponsible ethically imho.

i have told you repeatedly that as someone who has been that single parent who was ill and on benefits i did not get anywhere near the figures you have been suggesting on here but you insist on repeating them. all in re: rent, council tax, disability benefit (so higher than most single parents who are on basic IS) and child tax credit i received aprox 14k pa. not a vast sum is it? and presumably you wouldn't argue that i was 'about the same' as a single parent earning 50k?

i live an hour out of london so you can't write it off as me living in a ridiculously cheap area and i was better off than most single mum's because i was on incapacity benefit not income support.

i can tell you i definitely wasn't as well off as when i was working, owned my own flat and was looking forward to owning property outright and having a good pension in the future and i wasn't paid anywhere near 50k.

i am not saying earning 50k is rolling in it and i have argued it is not fair to take cb off of single parents with preschool children because their expenses are so high. i do have to argue against blatant misrepresentations that serve only to create resentment between people - especially women. it is that kind of rhetoric and spin that has landed us with a government who feels licensed to make these kind of cuts.