Make Child Benefit a Means Tested Benefit.

[Whatabonkersworld]

So, the Winter Fuel Payment has been made means tested. According to the government older people have no need for any help to pay their winter fuel bill.
In a dose of reality here's another massive cost saving exercise. The annual bill for Child Benefit is something over £12bn. I suggest Child Benefit also become means tested and only parents who receive tax credits are eligible. Those unemployed would receive a stipend added to their universal credit, but would not be eligible for Child Benefit. This would become a strictly working persons benefit. This would save the country a huge amount of money and will hopefully pay for the inevitable pay increase recommendations for the rail workers and consultants which will shortly be coming round for negotiations.
How how does everyone like them Bananas!

Definitely should be means tested. Posters spouting that pensioners should have made sure they had enough pension and saving to live on well parents should make sure they have enough money to have children.

Can't afford them then don't have them.

I hope Labour do means test and make the qualifying bar very low and then I will sit back and watch the moaning

People on on 40K or 50K who choose to have kids really don't need top ups from the state...

A couple on 40k and 50k with two pre school children are not well off in some parts of the UK. That's a take home of about £6k pcm - before student debt repayment and pension provision. The might well be paying £2k for housing and the same again for nursery fees. Leaving less than £2k for bills, cars, food clothes etc.

And there are many young families with children who need more support and don't get it. They will also fall just above the cap for support.Everyone who needs help should get it but I don't think older people should be treated any differently from younger people.

We have benefited from the triple lock for several years which has meant we have benefited from higher rises in our pensions than most workers and higher than those on universal credit.
Of course I am happy about that and I have also enjoyed having the winter fuel allowances but I and many pensioners don't need it ( incidentally I am not on a huge pension and my household is way below higher tax levels but we are still more comfortable than many young families )
Currently many pensioners don't claim everything they are entitled to include pension credits the Government have said they will work with local authorities to encourage people to claim. I think this is the fairer way to proceed

How about we as a society support everyone through the less financially comfortable stages of the lifecycle? Because that's what we pay so much NI for?

All the tax payers are tomorrow's pensioners, and all the children are tomorrow's tax payers. Even the people who don't earn enough to pay much income tax, are propping is all up by filling essential jobs. We're all interdependent.

"Can't afford 'em, don't have 'em" is as obnoxious as anything else that's been posted.

Agree with you.
Benefits should be used to top people up to a basic standard of living, not to keep people in the manner to which they would like to be accustomed!
Obviously that raises the question of 'what is a basic standard of living'. People will disagree on the exact criteria but surely it doesn't mean a large home a large car and expensive holidays?

Even the people who don't earn enough to pay much income tax, are propping is all up by filling essential jobs. We're all interdependent
@LiterallyOnFire yes those who have large salaries would be stuffed were it not for those who work essential jobs for wages which are not enough to live on and of course the companies which employ them would go bust if they had to pay a living wage.
The nhs would fall over completely where it not for those who provide care for free.

I'd rather the government focused on the tax avoidance schemes of the super rich and the over inflated expenses claims for MP's instead of winter fuel allowance and child benefit tbh.

I agree.
However the wealthy use their money to protect their money and assets, they have the ability to keep it hidden away so that no one can touch it.
That means it's too difficult for the government to go after it so they go for the poor people who are easy targets because they don't have the means to protect their money (or any money to protect)
I don't think there will ever be a wealth tax ☹️

The universal winter fuel allowance is going.

This is the thing with benefits they can be removed.

Just as families have to juggle high housing and childcare costs, pensioners, some of them, now will have to work something out. Save £4 a week all year, have one less coffee out, isn't that the general advice to youngsters, we all have to juggle household budgets.

Ask your loving family you brought up better than any of us are doing for a bit of help.

I am sure they will think of something they love crowing how resourceful they always have been.

I don't think that Child Benefit should be cut but it is unfair that anyone earning under £50000 receives it whilst pensioners are no longer getting the winter fuel payment.
The average single pensioner has a net monthly income of around £1100, and will have paid tax due to the frozen personal allowance. These pensioners have an income that is too high to receive Pension Credit. A full time worker on minimum wage will have a net monthly income of around £1600. You can take home £3000 a month and get Child Benefit.
Do all the Baby Boomer bashers really believe that all pensioners are rich? It seems so but is patently untrue.
Stop winter fuel payment for those paying higher rate tax and leave it alone for everyone else.

Do all the Baby Boomer bashers really believe that all pensioners are rich? It seems so but is patently untrue.

when 74% of them outright own their own homes - they have capital - so yes

17% claim benefits and will be able to claim WFA

All the tax payers are tomorrow's pensioners, and all the children are tomorrow's tax payers.

but the equation doesn't add up - there will not be enough children tomorrow to pay for tax payers today when they are pensioners - some money needs to be plugged from flood out

No I don't think the poorest pensioners should have it taken away. But I absolutely think families are WAY more likely to be struggling than pensioners on the whole. Pensioners have either paid off their mortgage or they're eligible for housing benefit. They have council tax to pay and water / heating / electric / food.
Families with young kids have to pay for all those things as well as housing - which is a bloody huge cost these days, childcare - might be £2k a month for 2 kids full time, travel to and from work, more mouths to feed, school uniform, prescriptions. It's just not comparable in any way

This is absolutely right! Pensioner incomes have gone up and up in recent years so that the majority have comparable incomes to working people. In that sense it has been a very good outcome. When the WHA was introduced (by Labour) this was not the case.

Some pensioners have just over the pension credit threshold of £218.25 per week, hardly equivalent to a salary, it’s a pittance and the £200 will be taken from them too. It’s not just wealthy pensioners it’s been taken from. I agree that wealthy pensioners should lose it, but not people who earn just over £218.15 per week. The cut off is too low for pension credit.

Not all pensioners are well off. I know many don't need the Winter Fuel Payment but many are struggling to live off just SP. Two wrongs don't make a right. Taking money away from DC won't make it any easier for struggling pensioners. It would have made more sense to say no Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners with income over X. That would mean those with SP plus a private pension wouldn't get it.

£2k a month after housing costs is a better position than most people.

I agree I'd love to see all DC getting a free hot meal every school day.

I agree with this and I'm a pensioner. Deduct NI from pensions the same as earning. Those over pension age are just as much users of public services as the young. It would help pay for social care.
Better still abolish National insurance and add it on to tax.

I would make all benefits means tested and paid only to those on means tested benefits. Including free childcare, bus passes, free prescriptions for over 60s, child benefit (which is means tested but generously)

I claim and pay back:

1. I'm already filling out a self-assessment tax return so the CB page takes 25 seconds extra
2. my income varies - if it dips below the threshold then I get to keep some CB; you can't backdate a CB claim and get it later though
3. £45 in interest on it isn't nothing

The most ridiculous thing about this "means tested benefit" is single parents are adversely affected meaning if they get over a certain income limit they won't receive it, whereas two parents earning almost double that limit when combined can still receive it!

At every salary level, someone who is on that salary level and isn't nurturing the next generation of taxpayers is significantly better off than someone who is earning that money and nurturing the next generation of tax payers.

I think that we as a nation can and should give this modest recompense almost universally, excluding only the very wealthiest (which is what already happens with the clawback for those on higher incomes).

The squeezed middle don't get much. It's wrong to take away the little bit of support they get.

I think it was a mistake for Labour to commit to no income tax rises.
There is a disjoint between the level of public services people feel the state should provide and the level of tax they feel it is reasonable to pay. Countries with better public services have higher taxes. This isn't a disjoint that can be chipped away by eroding a few tax breaks here and there.

Thinking like this is just taking us backwards. Of course child benefit should stay, it’s to benefit children. It is effectively means tested,

it’s a horrific situation we’ve now found ourselves in due to labour that people are arguing about who should lose their benefits and targeting children and pensioners.

But the pensioners you're talking about were not so very long ago the working population that you're describing, struggling to pay household bills, paying mortgages, bringing up children, maybe not having a holiday, buying cheap runaround cars etc.

Of course by the time people retire they should have paid off their mortgage that they worked so hard to do. Surely you don't begrudge elderly people having money to enjoy their twilight years do you? Getting old is part of life, for those fortunate enough not to die young it can't be avoided. I can't believe there are people on here who would begrudge an elderly person being able to afford to buy a coffee once a week, saying they should put it towards their heating bill

I really think we should abolish NI, and add about 6% to all the tax rates. Currently the lower NI rate is 8% and the rate over 50,000 is 2%. That's the wrong way around.

And then they could increase the higher tax rate a bit more on top and increase the tax-free allowance/higher earnings threshold by about 8,000 while they're at it!