to think the CB abolition has had an effect a bit like kicking an ants' nest

[OrmRenewed]

on MN

And the calls for 'someone else' ie the elderly, to have their benefits cut have started already.

I have very little nice to say about the Tories but if they have to make cuts, I'd rather CB went than see cuts in other areas. It seems a reasonable place to start.

Welshexpat - your "doubt" makes it very obvious that your grip on social reality is tenuous. Or are you assuming that the wealthy are less likely to neglect and abuse their families?

clem.

My "doubt" was that whilst I do not doubt that some (perhaps many) children do go hungry for a variety of circumstances-drink and drugs being the most common. However, I do doubt that are many women whose husbands/partners earn more than £44k who would put up with it for very long.

A few possibly but CB is not the cure for their problem.

Are you for real? Are you actually suggesting that abuse only occurs in poorer households?
Sickening lack of understanding of the world.

newwave.

Its not the rich and connected whose incomes have gone up, its the educated and skilled.

The vast bulk of workers in the fifties worked in repetitive manual or clerical work, so incomes were flatter. You might have noticed that computers now do most of the clerical tasks and the Chinese do most of the repetitive work.

That doesn't leave much value added work for someone with no education or skill training and so their incomes relative to those that do have that will continue to decline.

These trends are not new and have been widely discussed for thirty years or more, so who is responsible for those that chose not to acquire the knowledge or skills to compete, the taxpayers who did work to do that or the unskilled themselves.

clem

No abuse occurs at all levels in society. Sending your kids to boarding school at eight rates pretty high in my book.

What I did mean to say is that someone with that income has more options than someone on a much lower income and should do something about it. Again CB is no answer if they choose not to.

Welsh, so what is to be done about those who are not highly educated and who to be crude and non PC are "thick". As you said the work that they would have done in the past is done by machines.

Do we let them fall by the wayside.

Good debate by the way

I don't know if it has already been said - I have read most of the thread but not every last word but the new way of paying CB is not means testing.

Means testing would involve calculating household, i.e. joint income and would require joint declaration and loads of admin.

The reason it is being done on individual salaries is to avoid having to do all those calculations and so the CB will be paid or not paid based on your tax code, i.e. you go into the 40% tax band you don't get CB.

Working it out on joint salaries is extremely costly and difficult to administer and when they are allegedely trying to simplify the tax and benefits system will just add more administration costs.

Niecie, so for the sake of expediency screw fairness and justice, typical Tory scumbags

I was making no judgement on the fairness or otherwise. It was just annoying me that people were going on about means testing when it isn't.

News on Sky saying that David Cameron has just announced he wants to introduce a transferable tax allowance for couples to make it fairer for Couples where on is SAHP to make CB fairer.

This will ofset the sting of the loss of CB and it must surely have been announced in response to the very strong public reaction yesterday to the unfair way the loss of CB was to be introduced as it was anounced yesterday.

Agree Riven

Has anyone mentioned "competitive pooring" yet?

((runs for the hills))

"Interesting that the cuts which will hit the poorest and most vulnerable will start immediately but the ones which will hit Middle England won't kick in for some time!"

Well exactly arctic. And what cut is making the most splash on MN? Which is precisely why I posted this thread.

"The reason it is being done on individual salaries is to avoid having to do all those calculations and so the CB will be paid or not paid based on your tax code, i.e. you go into the 40% tax band you don't get CB"

Yy. And it might well be a first attempt. Who knows.

I know orm-shows us to be a bunch of grabby selfish middle class mothers indifferent to the Tory attacks on the poor.

I would think, given that it isn't going to implemented for 3 yrs that it was a first attempt - they know this isn't going to popular and so they are coming in with the worst plan they can think of and then have 3 yrs to soften the blow with things like the transferable tax allowance.

Where did you see that BeenBeta? Not obvious on the BBC yet.

I also think if they were thinking of protecting their MC voters by making the pooriest suffer now yet letting the higher earners wait before losing their benefits, it is a bit daft as a vote winning idea as the higher earners will be losing their CB when the country is just beginning to think about the next election.

Think it is clever propaganda-they will modify it with other measures to placate their core vote but they will push ahead with the cuts on the poorest now without any modifcations.

We would lose the CB under the current proposals. I am angry that while we would lose it that people with 2 incomes would retain it despite earning more that £44000. Surely it should be fair and based upon household income? After all isn't it supposed to benefit the child/children? So how can it be fair if it not based on household income? So the child/children of a couple earning £86000 gets the CB but the couple with £44000's child/children gets nothing. Please explain how this is equitable?

I don't mind losing the CB but I do mind the unfairness.

EXACTLY Careybliss.

They need to find a way of doing it which is fair.

The fairest way would be to increase taxes for all those in the higher rate-also cheaper to administer than means testing cb.

Welshexpat, seldom has any poster made me as angry as you have. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. What use is a high-earning husband if as a SAHM you have no immediate access to that money? When my ex-h started having an affair he put his salary into a separate account and left me totally penniless. So I put the CB into a separate account and tried to look after myself and 2 kids on that, and under yesterday's announcement I'd have lost that too!

As for knowing your spouse's character before marriage, tell me, do you regard living together for 7 yrs before marriage as enough time to get to know someone - or what time would you recommend?

Niece - its all over Sky News and on their website but the transferable tax allowance idea is limited to £750 and so represents only a partial climb down and of course single parents are not able to benefit form the transfer of any allowance.

Arctic - the disquiet people feel about this is not about 'grabby middle class' people. The problem is for low middle income families where only one person works in a family but earns just enough (45k) to pay higher rate tax. They lose all their CB.

My family will not lose out because of the unusual way we earn a living even though me and DW jointly earn much more than £45k per annum.

Likewise, families who have ther own business will be able to make sure that the man and wife only draw just enough wages to keep them both just below the upper rate tax band. They will keep CB even though the business may be worth £xx millions.

The unfairness of it is what is causing the protest. I feel it is unfair even though I will not lose out. Indeed, if my family had lost CB because we are higher earners I would have accepted it and not complained. I would have been rightly open to accusations of being 'grabby' if I did.

I am a Labour supporter but i dont think this policy would be too bad as 44 k is a good income surely ? Let them save a bit of money and then when Labour gets back in i would think they would bring back universal child benefit. I would rather they capped child benefit than cut services to the elderly, nhs, education or made people redundant. Unfortunately some people on here who are saying they will loose the child benefit may get it after all if they loose their job. People really seem to be very self centered on here !

Agree kerstina!