CB - alternative solutions?

[CardyMow]

If cutting CB in the way that has been outlined is unfair, how else could/ should the government save money on this benefit?

I ask this because a columnist in the Daily Fail (I ^know!) said that he would rather they stopped CB for dc at the age of 16yo, regardless of whether they are still in education or not.

I always thought that the reason CB was paid to 19 was because, if, like our family, you are caught in a cycle of very low wages (£16Kfor a FT job), the only way out is more education. If you take away CB for poor people, they will also lose their TC's, and theefore have a dc in FT education that they get NO income for, and are therefore unable to feed or clothe them. It was done because otherwise, these DC would HAVE to go out to work FT, just to have money to eat, thus them also being stuck forever in a very low paid job, with no chance of bettering themselves.

Surely education is the way OUT of the benefits trap? But many more dc will be forced to leave school at 16 to work in min wage jobs if their parents cannot feed them while they gain better qualifications.

It would make any form of further education the preserve of the rich, surely that is a step too far back in time?

While I agree that the way of administering this CB cut needs to be fairer and based on household income rather than one earners tax bracket, surely if minimum wage is £5.85 p/h, then a lot of the country earn barely more than £12,000pa for a FT job, so wherever you are, whatever you are doing, £42K is a HUGE income...Why shouldn't CB be cut for anyone with a household income of £34K pa? My family certainly wouldn't need CB if we had an income of £34Kpa.

/////how else could/ should the government save money on this benefit?////

Cutting services, winter fuel payments, and child benefit isnt about reducing the deficit, it is about political dogma, right wing political dogma, it is about reducing the role in what "the state" provides, because the Tory "right" do not believe in the role of the state, and we are all falling for it.

/////but i think they have it much better now than generations to come////

Your damn right.

Former Liberals and the past "traditional" LabourGovernment's made sure a State pension was sacrosanct for old age retirement by way of contributions through a 30, 40, and 50 year working life.

Thatcher didnt, in 1980 she broke the link that kept state pensions increasing as British prosperity increased, and New Labour did nothing to reverse this.

In our market lead economy with or without Deficit cuts, todays young people are looking forward to a garbage retirement because privare pensions are vastly expensive, and the State will no longer provide anything worth a light to live on, yet "the state" will continue sending billions tyo around 60 countries worldwide,
looking after Royalty, fighting foreign wars, and sending £50 million a day to Europe.

And naturelly, we Brits put up with all this, because we are British.

Loudlass, how about finding a 6th former (a friend's daughter?) willing to come to your house and sit her with while they both do homework, leaving the younger ones at after school club. You wouldn't have to pay the 6th former that much as it wouldn't be very hard work for her. Also it would only be for the next 2-3 years potentially until your daughter is OK to be left alone at home, and would enable you to go back to work or college and get a foot back on the ladder so to speak.

Today's pensioners have been lucky. They are the first and last generation to have been this lucky. Many of them "hit" the job market when there was full employment and you could afford to buy a house on a modest salary. (Although many of them really struggled financially bringing up their own children in the 60s and 70s). Most of the pensioners I know are pretty well off due to advantageous house sales, but they are also very generous with their money. They do not in any way deserve to have scorn and blame heaped on them. They were just lucky to have been born at the right time for some things.

They were also "lucky" enough to have been born in time to go through a major world recession far worse than this one, terrible conflicts of ideology, WW2 and rationing and no free health care until they were adults.

HMRC costs the taxpayers £6000000000 annually!!!

We could make some serious savings there!

We could collect all money in through the vat system. That way the "super rich" who are currently tax exiles making use of this country would be contributing far more than they currently are.

There is obviously the argument that vat penalizes the poorest section of society but assuming that they are working poor they could possibly be better off without the burden of income tax.

It wouldn't be 2-3 years, DD will be unable to be left alone for quite some time yet. Plus I don't know anyone with dc older than DD, all my friends dc are between 8yo and 2yo! But it would be worth looking at, if anyone wants to offer me a job...with me having uncontrolled epilepsy. Haven't fond an emloyer willing to in the last 3 yrs.

Vat would be an extra burden on us if they increased it much more, even clothing for my (tall) dc would be subject to VAT. DD at 12 is in adult clothing, and DS1 isnt far off it. Our cooker breaks - VAT. Ditto any other household equipment. We cannot avoid those costs. While paying no income tax would be helpful, the things that we would have to pay VAT on would be a much higher percentage of our total income than for someone earning more. While people on higher incomes than us may be able to avoid some of those extra VAT increases, by not going to eat out, or not going on holiday or not replacing their older cars etc, if you don't have/do any of those things to start with, there is nowhere to MAKE avoidable savings on the things we have to ay vat on.

I saw an article today that 79% of women pensioners have private pensions of less than £5000 and many will have not paid the NI stamp as at one time it was optional. 50% of couples have £5000 or less in private pension saving and 28% of women have no pensions. Therefore there are a lot of pensioners reliant on the pension credit.

I think it would be more unfair on couples who both work and pay childcare but earn less than £30,000 each lose their child benefit as these people are under more stress trying to combine working and raising children, are paying tax and in a lot of cases a great deal on childcare. This is the majority of people in this country as most women work according to the statistics and the average salary is £24/£25000. There is a small minority of non-working spouses to partners who earn between 44-50,000 who are more likely to be affected as I believe the number of people earning in that category is in the top 10%. Therefore taking the majority this has the least effect without covering the cost of means-testing, hence why it was chosen I believe.

Let's all jump on the shoulders of the squeezed middle classes! We wouldn't last 10 seconds in the air.

Introduce the Tobin Tax, simple enough to do given the computerised system of finances. It would generate twice the amount that cutting this system would bring.

Cutting universal taxes is a way of saying let's go the USA style of politics. EG why should somone on 18,000pa pay taxes for those earning 50,000 to get free NHS treatment. Well?

Given that by the time a woman reaches 40 she'll earn 27% less than her male peers, it's shocking that child benefit should go.

My husband is a high earning person,£45.000+ but by the time he has paid tax and NI he is only coming out with £30.000+ out of that he has to paid for all the bills plus the mortagae which all in all with bills comes to about £ 1500-2000 a month.Which mean there is not lot left for the food and the children. Why is it that the people who does bother to go out to work and look after there familiy always has to paid for "peopler that can't be bother to go out to work, but are happy to sit on there aaaaa and be on benifit and have every thing paid for by us hard earning peopler, yes i know that there some peopler that cant do any work, but there more of them that can but just cant be bother.Where is our benifit for the good work that we do. We need the benfit as it pays for my two childrens classes that they do, without it my two children will be doing nothing but sit at home. I am sure that there are more of you out there that think the same as me.

Don't need any benefits, just stop taxing the hell out of my husband and I! Plus stop villifying me for wanting 'middle class' things. I really don't mind child benefit taken from higher earners, just make sure that the process of selecting who is who doesn't cost more than the money saved.

And finally tackle those benefit buggers that manage to have bigger TVs, more toys for the kids, better holidays and similar lifestyle without doing a day's work! A friend - a lovely woman - was granted asylum, never worked, lives across the street from Hyde Park - Kensignton side in a gorgeous huge private rental flat - all paid by the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I alsways wondered how she managed - now I know.

msupa, I agree, I am paying in excess of £2000 a month in tax and NI I am also paying a good sum into my company pension in volountary contributions so i am comfortable when I retire so no more bloody tax please.

Totally agree with Bramshott! Have been bothering my local (Tory) MP with a similar argument but get same sort of 'duly noted, silly mum-type-person' response every time. I will lose my CHB, my family will miss this money a lot, but i'd've found it easier to swallow if it was 'fair' i.e. capped at the households income, as opposed to one earners income. On an unrelated note, this has hit me hard psychologically-someone in a suit has found me worthless as I have temporarily suspended a graduate career to do poorly paid work that fits in better with the kids. Worked so hard to be able to buy a home and cut back on working hours too. Feel very deflated.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle (ie even if you disagree, please don't hammer me)

If you don't feel appreciated as a housewife you could always get a job. Most adults like a job and a family for a balanced life.

Most pensioners have very little and most don't complain much about it. In my view they need a lot more help than most families with young children although you will never support for that point on a web site devoted to mothers with children.

Everyone is talking about the £44k higher rate band but according to the Sunday press in April next year this threshold will actually be set at £38600 - so many more will be pulled into the higher rate threshold...how did we miss that one?

America seems a better bet

I came to this site looking for info on the recent findings that mothers prefer their sons (mine did with very damaging results) but strayed into other subjects and was compelled to comment.
Surely the answer to the child benefit - and many other problems - is to scrap it, raise the minumum wage (with grants to small businesses who truly would have difficulty paying an increase), raise the rate at which basic tax is paid and scrap council tax and replace it with a local income tax.
I don't have children - by choice - and am truly tired of being labelled selfish, particularly as I've never heard anyone say 'I must do my duty to society and have children', what I've always heard in regard to having children is 'I want'. To those who label the child free selfish, qualifying their statement by saying people like me wiill rely on their children when we get old, consider this, for nearly 40 years I've paid my Council Tax, approximately 1/3 of which goes to education, for even longer than that I've paid income tax on my less than the average wage, and some of that tax has gone to pay child benefit to people earning far more than me. In addition I've not contributed hundreds of disposable nappies to landfill, added to pollution driving children to school etc and as for relying on today's children in future, am I not also likely to be mugged by them or burgled by them to fund their drugs habits? A little less sanctimony and a little more thought please, parents.

oldgeezeress - your tax has not gone to people earning far more than you. those people pay enough tax to cover their own child benefit unless they have 10 children and I don't think there are many people earning 44k who can afford to have 10 children. You may have contributed your tax to those earning less who have children. You are also paying for things like replacing trident, civil service pensions etc that have nothing to do with children.

I don't regard you as selfish for not wanting children but you do come across as bitter in that you resent paying for the children of the country to be educated. Did you go to school yourself and did you go to university? Who paid for that? Would you like to be served in a shop by some one who can't add up becuase they haven't been educated. I expect when you are in hospital you would like the person operating on you to be a qualified doctor. If we don't educate the country's children we will have to up immigration substantially to get a qualified workforce.

You have not contributed nappies to landfill but you have probably taken aeroplanes and driven your car. Not every parent uses disposable nappies. Is your post a wind up?

A local income tax would not necessarily be fairer as some one earning 42k and living in a 1 bed flat or not even owning a property might end up paying more than someone living in a four bed house who has paid off their mortgage and having just retired has an income of 35k.

local income tax would be totally unfair. we would end up paying loads more than our 3 neighbours who are all retired and rolling in it. they have far more disposable income than we will ever have. no account is made of essential fixed costs such as mortgage, cars to get to work, childcare, pensions, lodging whilst working away etc. in an area where there are loads of rich retired people we working families would be stung big time

What really annoys me is that i was encouraged to train to be a teacher as the government wanted teachers, I trained for 4 years, spent 16 years working my way up the pay scale and now i'm going to be penalised. I am an experienced teacher that the government needs in the education system and i've had to leave the profession because I can't afford my childcare and can't get any help from anywhere. What part of that makes sense! talk about robbing peter to pay paul.
Our CB is just about keeping our heads above water. My twins get through 20 pints of milk and over 100 nappies per week. that's where my CB goes and it doesn't even cover that. Without it we will be in serious trouble.

mrs mooh - i thought that teachers were on a decent wage now? Am I wrong?

@dreamingofsun - some are, some aren't.

There's a huge variation in teaching salaries, Ed "no" Balls made a claim that the average was over £30k...which is only true if you factor in the headteachers who can be on salaries in the £100k region!

I would suggest a more realistic average salary for your average class teacher is somewhere between £20k and £26k.

To get on the upper pay spine you have to apply to go through 'threshold', to bring in any decent money you really have to take on management points etc. and this means you work many more (uncontracted!) hours...or at least you should if you're worthy of the job.

Don't forget that these days to become qualified you will have to have spent money on courses e.g. PGCE....and don't think the government initatives covered the cost of that little lot!

I hope nobody retorts with any smart comments about going home at 3.30 or 6 weeks Summer holiday - 'cos that's a myth too. (unless you're a slacker in which case you shouldn't be doing the job in the first place!)

20k isn't much for doing such a stressful/responsible job

I don't think many teachers earn 20k and you do move up the payscale quite quick. Threshold is quite a painless procedure if you are competent at your job.

I don't want to pay tax just to get it back again or for if it to go to other high rate tax payers. I want my tax to help those less fortunate than me or to fund schools or hospitals etc. I am glad that I am no longer given the opportunity to take money out of the system that could be better used elsewhere.

I'm a full time Mum of many children. Part of the skill and challenge of being a good homemaker is making the salary of DH stretch. We are technically rich and could live without CB but why is a dual income family on 80k deemed worthy of support? It's their duty to refuse to accept it! Ditto all the OAP's who accept their ageist benefits - old age pension, flu jabs, free bus pass, free prescriptions , free eye tests, concessionary rates etc etc, irrespective of whether they still live in a family-sized house, have private pensions, run a(new)car, own 4 dogs,take foreign holidays ie could afford to pay for it all privately.