To think that too many people rely on Tax Credits?

[workhardplayhard]

Reading many of the threads on Mumsnet it seems that a large proportion of contributors rely on Tax Credits to top up their incomes.

I don't know anyone who claims Tax Credits IRL but if I did I don't think it would change my opinion - I think people should be fully responsible for providing for their own offspring without any benefits.

I have stated on a previous thread that I DO believe that people should get some assistance if their circumstances change ( Redundancy/Ill Health) but only for a set period.

I don't think the government should pay for people to have multiple children that they can ill afford to provide for.

I would be interested to hear other views.

Also both couple are military. The second couple both work 8am - 5om Monday to friday

The 16 hour rule is a good thing in my view.It allows you to keep one foot in the world of working.I can only get childcare at weekends when xp has them. I can't afford even 20% of the childcare for a full time 18 month old on a care assistant salary. I am looking to go back to care work 16 hours to stay experienced and employable.I would like to progress and do nvq 3 and 4 and end up in managment.If it were a choice between full time or benefits I would stay unemployed (through no choice of my own).This would mean staying experienced for only minium wage. It may be abused but there is some sense in the 16 hour rule.Even for couples too. There is very high unemployment in my area and more part time positions than anything else.Better to be doing some kind of work.People who are jealous that they have to work full time whilst someone on tax credits can do 16 hours is not seeing the bigger picture beyond their own life.Anyway the 16 hour for couples is being upped soon anyway.

So what you're saying OP, is that unless people are particularly well-off they shouldn't have children until they've saved enough to afford them?

Perhaps when they reach their 50s or 60s they can afford to start a family.

Goosefat

I didnt mean to imply that anyone working PT was sponging! Just that if there is a choice, which in your case there isnt, then surely FT should be the preference?

i work 30hrs a week and am a single parent with 2 dc- i get around 70% of my childcare paid for (think it has gone down from 80%?)which is included in the £182 a week i receive. i do receive ok maintenance from both absent fathers so i am doing ok for money as obviously i earn a wage too.

i dont think i could manage without the TC money though, and i often wonder how lone parents who receive no maintenance from obsent fathers cope.
(My mortgage is £850 pcm)

I do wonder what people did before TCs as the fear of losing them is huge and they are a relatively new thing

My point was meant to be- that when i was part of a couple we only got around ten quid a week tax credits, and i wasnt even working at all then, and my dh was only earning around 23k. We struggled a lot more financially as a couple receiving TC, so we were hardly lording it!!!

Apols if someone has already said this, but I CBA to read all 11 pages of this thread.

OP, I don't think you're being completely U to think many families are too reliant on tax credits. But the families that are reliant aren't bad, scrounging or lazy for doing so.

Looking at the bigger picture, we had 13 years of a government that believed state control and redistribution of money was a good thing. Understandably if money is available, people build it into their lives and may come to rely on it. They would be unreasonable not to.

In turn, this keeps wages down, as companies can afford to pay less because people's salaries are topped up by the government. So effectively, the taxpayer is subsidising businesses, as they don't need to pay a living wage.

This is all very well in boom years, when there's a big pot of tax revenue to hand out and lots of people paying taxes. But then when things crash, businesses flounder so wages still aren't going up, but tax receipts drop so the government can't afford to keep subsidising business salaries through tax credits. And then it starts to get ugly. YANBU to think this situation is not great.

But if you are not looking at the bigger picture, and just believe that the individuals caught up in this system are lazy scroungers, then YABVVVU.

noddyholder yes it is quite a new thing, but not that new, it has been called several different names in the past but all my working life so the last 15 years, since I was 16, there has always been some sort of top up.

I had my DD young, I kept working and also went to college and at that time I was entitled to what was called Family credit.

From what I remember that had been in place a while as I remember my BFF at school, her parents divorced and her mum worked and I remember us over hearing her talking and mentioning that she was entitled to Family credit and I was 13 at the time, so that was 18 years ago.

So me and my whole generation and all the generation behind me, know nothing but having these type of "benefits" as a necessary part of living if you don't have a well paid job.

I claimed Family Credit when I was a young single mum just under 20 years ago, although it was fairly new then I think, so as Emj says, there has been something around as a top up for many years.

Can I ask why they decided on 16 hours? why not 15? let me explain.

If you have a part time job working in a shop or an office and you can only work weekends you can only work 15 hours based on 8.30-5.30 on a sat and 10-4 on a sunday. These hours are the norm for weekend work. why have the gov said no, you must work one hour longer, this cuts out most weekend work? why not have it at 15 hours or 10,

does anyone understand what i mean? anyone know the reasons behind the 16 hour rule (weird number anyway)

I get you.

What I don't is how people still expect to get floors cleaned, streets swept etc in an area like ours (coastal town in Solent area) when there is no way you could live privately on minimum wage.

Or should poor people not procreate? Or get bussed in from poor ghettoes where they can afford to live/swap childcare etc?

Someone asked how lone parents manage with little maintenance from the NRP. Under the old rules, certainly family credit, possible working per week was deducted from your entitlement.

Nowadays, a lone parent who receiving a substantial amount of maintenance in addition to tax credit/hb and wages is nicely off, just as they are if they are on IS recently, but this hasn't always been the case. Not sure if maintenance is taken into account for housing benefit?

'Possibly working family tax credit, any maintenance over £15 per week'.

(Don't know what happened as I lost some words)

MadMissy

I'd forgotten about clothes! Yes child is decently dressed... parent looks like back end of bus! LOL
Thankgoodness I have a uniform at work!

Dunno if this helps some of the head scratching...

If I worked full time I WOULD take home more than I do now absolutely.

However my childcare costs would be so high I would either be worse of or a few pounds a week better off and I would have the problem of a child in 40+hrs of childcare a week as i am a lone parent.

Best advice I was given is that you look at your take home income as NET income (wage, tax credits, child benefit and CSA) MINUS childcare costs.

For example when i dropped hours from 3 days a week to a 3 day / 2 day pattern I was £3 a week BETTER off because on the 3 day week I do a shift I DONT NEED TO PAY CHILD CARE FOR.

If you have children you have to consider child care as a deduction before you get it home.

Thats is how I see tax credits working for some better than others... they know how to balance working hours and childcare.

Oh and then there are the others who blatently fiddle and claim as lone parents, work off the books etc

yep

YABU

without tax credit I would be starving!

Have re-posted what i wrote earlier, with the typos corrected

I think the system works strangely TBH. I CM for a couple who get (so she told me) £1950 a month between them. Their childcare bill is £900 a month and she said she gets £800 of that paid by childcare tax credits.
Another couple across the road, take home pay between them is £1450 their childcare bill is £600 and they get no help at all.

It seems very strange how they work things out

The second couple both work 8-5 Mondya to friday, the second couple work similar hours (both over 16 hours per week anyway)