AIBU to claim child benefit?

[tooposhtopost]

This morning, I heard a minister being interviewed (didn't catch who) saying that he hoped that 40% tax payers would "do the right thing" and stop claiming child benefit.

The top earners already pay 50% tax, get no tax relief on our pension contributions and often do not overburden the state (eg private education for the DC, private healthcare).

I have always claimed CB - well, it arrives by direct debit. I have seen it as a tiny weeny small rebate of tax in recognition of the fact that we have the extra cost of having children who will be the ones supporting all of us when we get old. So should I be disclaiming it?

Who else would like to know if any government ministers (or their wives) claim CB or whether they are leading by example and eschewing it?

your child care costs nearly 30k a year????

We're going to lose our CB. My DH earns just over the limit and I'm a SAHM. I can't see how a household living in the SE with an income considerably less than that found in a household where both parents are in fairly junior nursing jobs can be considered as very well off. Oh, and there are vast numbers of households here in the SE where rents and mortgages on very modest homes are at around the £1000 a month mark like mine. It really is bloody crap. I'm gutted.

If they dont want some people to have it, then make them non elligible for it. If they pay 40% tax yet are elligible and legally intitled to the child benefit then obviously people (mostly) will accept it, as it is their right to do so. They should change the elligibility if they are that bothered.

I'm interested in what happens to NI contributions. I was under the impression that the recipient of CB gets it counted for receiving a state pension, even if they don't pay enough NI. So if the low earning partner of a high earner received it, then there is a split which means the lower earner doesn't get part of the higher's pension, the low earner still would get state pension which might be essential to them. So what will happen now, will there still be a way of counting the entitlement to pension or is that scrapped too?

I think it is ludicrous that as a higher rate tax paryer I will receive CB...In my mind it should be for those who need help with food bills, children's clothing, ensuring they can keep the electricity and gas running...not for folk like me who will likely spend it on non essential goodies which I could afford regardless. My mother relied on it to top up her meagre wage to ensure I was warmly clothed and healthily fed. I thank god that i do not need to do the same, and am more than happy to be removed from the list of recipients. Finally for the OP: yes higher earners sometimes do remove themselves from state systems, but this only reinforces the suggestion that they do not need handouts. HOW on earth can you justify claiming such a benefit when you can afford private schooling?! Truly baffling.

Unjustifiable. They're lying decietful bastards, and I'm bitterly disappointed. I voted them in too. What an idiot, I really believed what they were saying.

I shall never vote again as long as I live.

MaMo would you be happy to lose CB if your household income was £44,000 knowing that others with a household income of £86,000 would still get their full entitlement to CB?

MaMoTTaT - about £1850 a month. We do use childcare vouchers and DD1 now gets some funding because she's over 3 but yes, that's what it is. And that's not even for full time places, and neither is it the most expensive nursery in this area.

Andrew Neil did a brilliant interview of Phil Hammond on the Daily Politics show. Got him to admit that his statement in April was electioneering rubbish.

MollieO I agree.

There's another point here too. There's a big difference between households of £44k losing the money, and those of £75k, for example. For the latter, it is a drop in the ocean. For the former, about 5% of post-tax income.

"I think it is ludicrous that as a higher rate tax paryer I will receive CB."

How much money do you have coming into your household? How many children do you have and how much is your mortgage/rent?

Just interested in how much disposable income you have to have to feel that losing C/B won't make much differencee.

Not read whole thread yet - am slowly getting through it, but surely it is obvious that you can have two households both with the same income, but the household with maybe 1 child, low mortgage etc will be better off than the household with 4 children, larger mortgage.

This is a silly and lazy idea from a government that doesn't care about the electorate

We will lose CB and after, childcare etc, we WILL notice the differenc very much. It makes the difference in being able to work or not for us.

Even when they reach school age, breakfast & after school clubs along with holiday clubs still cost almost as much as nursery. CB didn't even cover the cost of the school uniform for DS. Luckily I have 2 boys so will be able to recycle some of it when I lose CB!!

Personally I agree that CB should not be paid into a household above a certain threshold. Not sure how you do it but the total income of the household should be looked at so you don't get into the situation of two reasonable earners will get it whereas one eaner earning the same won't. A concept of an 'economic unit' i.e. who ever is in that family should be considered. This could be used to assess all benefits and not just CB.

This may be an issue in the relatively small number of cases where a family has split up but still living in the same house.

We wil loose the benefit - it just went into the accounts so was used up.

I would imagine the proposals will be altered - perhaps putting the salary threshold up and taking into account the "two people earning" option. People will welcome the modifications (even though if these modifications had been proposed initially, people would have been horrified). And while they are "celebrating", some other bad news will be slid out surreptitiously...

it really should be calculated by household rather than two people or one person earning. We won't lose out on CB because we earn nowhere near the average(!!!) income of £44k.

"HOW on earth can you justify claiming such a benefit when you can afford private schooling?! Truly baffling."

precisely, coraltoes. (love the name btw!)

I didnt think people really thought that 45 quid shoes and sponsering children and music lessons were a neccesity. Sorry to pick on the poster that mentioned those things but they do stick in my head rather.

If anyone thinks that CB is a measly amount, not worth much, they should not be claiming it.

Because to a lot of us, its a huge amount of money.

I remember Maureen Lipman talking about it ages ago. She said she got dirty looks when she was at the PO waiting to cash her book. (people shouldnt give her dirty looks IMO). She then went on to be very scathing and said something like 'because I only pick it up once every sixth months or so, we save it up to buy a tin of peaches (massively paraphrasing but you get me drift).

I just remember thinking 'why the hell do you bother then? If that amount of money seems so derisable to you?

I dont think anyone actually deserves CB but it really means something to some of us.

If I earnt 80k I wouldnt claim it or if I did I would donate it. Yeah, yeah I hear you all say, but I would. Me and OH both work and between us we earn less than 15K. The sort of salaries quoted seem incredibly high to me. Because they are. I dont begrudge anyone the money they earn. Contrary to popular belief people on low incomes are not all horribly jealous and resentful of those better off.

Infact I think nowdays a weird switch has occoured. The better off seem oddly jealous of those with a lot less than them.

When did that happen?

Same situation as Poogle.

Our highest outgoing is childcare, then bills then petrol/mortgage/food which are all about the same. We have v little left over at the end of the month.

If our income were more evenly distributed between the both of us, we'd still qualify for CB. And a lone parent with childcare to pay for, earning just over 44k, is really buggered.

I'm quoting another MNer: Child benefit is not a means tested benefit. It is a benefit that recognises the increased cost of bringing up children during their dependent years. So what if rich people earning hundreds of thousands of pounds claim child benefit? You can easily make up the difference by taxing them more. Just don't pretend that a 5% reduction in household income for a family living on £44,000 is fair.

"Contrary to popular belief people on low incomes are not all horribly jealous and resentful of those better off."

that is true. I am not jealous of those earning high amounts - that's up to them. But I do object to them receiving money they can easily live without.

I really think (sorry OP, this is a diversion) that people who are dissing my spending £45 a YEAR on school shoes should come and tell us how much they spend a year on school for their children. It's really pissing me off frankly. I have wrecked feet from a childhood of crap cheap shoes (I grew up very poor) and I don't want my children to be getting the arthritic toes that I have in their adult years. I think I've been frank enough about my spending for people not to pick on my children's school shoes repeatedly and to actually tell me what they spend.

My children go to school for the last term of every academic year in wrecked shoes. In fact DD2 is still in last year's because they didn't have the right width fitting in the shoe shop in September, and yes they are wrecked, but she gets out the Sharpie and colours in the heel where all the leather has peeled off. She is certainly not complaining.

Agree with DinahRod. I think that that poster with the shoes and music lessons may have been earning considerably more than £45k, and isn't really an example of someone on that salary!

The point is that for someone on say £45k, child benefit is perhaps 5% of post-tax income, depending on how many children you have. That is a large % drop for anyone. I don't think that you could put your children through private school on that sort of income in the SE. Maybe you can though .

No, we are not earning "considerably more than £45k". As I pointed out right at the beginning my husband earns about £200 into the upper tax bracket (about £43k?) and I am lucky if in a good year I earn £10k. This makes a good year family income of £53, most often in the upper reaches of the 40s, of which about 50% goes straight out again in the first few days of the month. Our monthly take home income is about £2400. Hardly like pigs in clover. Our CB is £242 for 4 children- so in a month where I earn nothing, like the last 6 months, that is 10% of our income, and a bit less when I earn something.

Duchesse
How are you managing a baby trust fund, sponsoring a child, music lessons on a family income of £50k. I am clearly the worst budgeter in the world. Am actually

Duchesse I understand where you are coming from.