to be annoyed by the treaury response to enquiry about fairness of child benefit removal?

[grumpypants]

I have now come to terms with higher income families losing CB. But this isn't what's happening - it is higher income earners so we all know the inequality of that. Basic maths etc.
So, anyway, my mum wrote to her MP to see how they could justify (in this new, fair world) letting two people keep it on £30 each but not one person on £50 say.
Two sides of political waffle about 'fairness' and the big mess left to them and the argument is essentially:

1. they don't want to set up a new means testing system (makes no sense - just add it to exisiting tax credits one?)
2. means testing CB would fundamentally chnage it's nature. (makes no sense - removing its universality is a fundamental change, no?)
3. 'higher rate tax payers are better off' - doesn't say than who.

So anyway, not much logical reasoning there.

We will have ours stopped too as over the threshold and I am asahm....We pay a lot of tax and don't get any benefits...I think it would be fairer to give to the first 2 children of all families...I know I will be unpopular but a lot of people who rely on state handouts seem to go on and on having more children as they know they will be provided for, whereas myself and a lot of my friends just couldn't really afford to have more than 2...Ours just gets absorbed into the household budget, but I feel that was my money I worked full time for 15 years before I had my kids and will go back when the youngest starts school....just seems unfair, and yes, yes I know there are lots of people worse off than us, it just sometimes feels the harder you work the worse off you become....

Perhaps I was being too generous assuming there was some logic behind the idea.

They should consider these things, but are we asking too much of tories to think about things (other than their personal millions and that of their millionaire friends/donors)

I wrote to my tory MP about this policy and he agreed it was unfair. A also remember a lib dem mp (Ed Davey) saying he was shocked by it. I think the policy was rushed in by Osborne, Cameron and possibly clegg without much consultation beyond. These three are so wealthy they have no idea what it is like for a family of four to live on a single salary of 40k in the more expensive areas of the country. Where I live you cannot even get a mortgage on a flat for this salary.

The bit that interests me is how they define "household". What if you have a sibling or grandparent living with you who earns over the higher rate of tax? In order to legally administer this they are going to have to either trust the person who GETS the benefit (usually the mother)to declare that they are no longer eligble and bring in some kind of legislation to tie the parents tax affairs together or implement some new system to register everyone in which case they might as well means test it properly. What happens about divorced parents? Will the lower earner full time carer lose their benefit if the other is a higher earner (even if they are not paying the maintainence they should?)

I am sahm and my dh earns just over the higher rate tax bracket so we should lose the cb in 2013.However as this is the ONLy oney I have(goes directly into my bank account) they will prise it from my cold,dead hands.

Its not just about the cash element of child benefit. As I understand it, there are changes to home responsibilities protection too which have already come into force. It's a double-whammy for a stay at home parent with high rate tax payer spouse - they lose not only the money but the pensionable years* 'work' credited for staying at home being a carer.

There's some information about it here

*assuming of course that there is a state pension by the time we're 70 and that our NI contributions won't have just been some awful sick joke ...

clouds pink - your posts made me laugh, thank you.

I'm so relieved this hadn't turned into a flaming - some interesting points made.

BTW I find it weird that there seems to be an assumption that every HR tax payer has a SAHM to do the childcare...I work p/t and dh is a HR tax payer, but we earn less between us than two friends who both work f/t. And we still have to pay childcare.

I can cope with the idea of saving money, just not like this. Whoever said they were too well off to think things thro was probably correct.

Bloody hell, we're fucked, aren't we? Seriously, there's going to be a whole shower of shit. Have you noticed most of it is after the olympics though?

higher rate taxpayers are also losing out on the increase to the personal tax allowance. They are moving the higher rate tax band lower so people paying higher rate tax will not benefit. More people will also be drawn in to paying higher rate tax and will end up losing their child benefit too.

it all just seems a bit stressful really - no way will the dcs be going to uni - the idea of paying back 36 grand each after they leave - nuts.

I agree its unfair, but the whole point of family allowance originally was to reduce child poverty. And it was usually paid to the mother because at the time it was almost entirely men that worked and women had no (or very low) income, and very often among poorer families men were drinking/gambling away part of their salary and not giving enough money for housekeeping to their wife, hence the child poverty.

I think anyone would struggle to argue that any family with an income of above £40k a year was at risk of poverty by any measure.

However I think CB should become something you apply for, like tax credits. Same with the state pension. Universal benefits should be ended.

I do sympathise - I'm pregnant and if I was having the baby about 2 months earlier I would have got over £1000 free money from the govt in grants, tax credits etc. But because of all the changes I won't. I don't strictly need the money, it just would have been nice, and seems unfair that all these things have ended at the same time.

My major concern with these proposals is that this may be the only money that goes directly to the mother. I have heard of high earners who consider their earnings to be their own personal spending money, while their partner and children are effectively living in poverty.

notrightnow - wow, only just picked up from your post that not only are they stopping CB for higher earners but also that if you don't get CB in future you will also be ineligible for state pension protection. That's appalling! Surely it's discriminatory because most of the carers who will lose out on a state pension will be women??

You only have to look at some of the poverty that divorced female pensioners suffer today (where they have no pension of their own having been housewives) to know this is a Really Bad Idea.

Pink4ever - but what can you do?!

This is all one big joke and so so unfair - it's the fact it is infair that makes me fume every time I think about it. It is a great big fuck off from the government who have rushed through a policy that makes no sense at all - and there is nothing we can do about it. They know it's unfair, they know people are pissed off but they don't give a crap.

@ Nonnomum, I like your post - don't get me started on tuition fees!

My husband is in the higher rate tax bracket and I have given up my career to look after our 2 children. My problem is that he also pays maintenance to his ex which is so much that when taken off his gross salary pretty much takes him to the threshold (he doesn't want to reduce payments as he's scared it'll ruin their precarious relationship). His ex will still get CB - will she need to declare the maintenance? And nowhere is the amount of money he pays her taken into account in terms of tax credits etc.

I would like to work so I don't always have to penny pinch but because my husband works away loads with sometimes very little notice it would be really difficult for me to sort out childcare for an evening / casual job and don't think it's fair on them for me to try and get a 'decent' job which would mean they don't see me much either!

In ten short term higher tax earners will still receive it. You have to stop claiming it- it wont be stopped. You will then pay it back through the end of year tax return so it will be like an interest free loan.

So if it is the only income you will still get it. Your dh will then have to pay it back later. Not you.

If it was good enough for the Queen, and her four children, it's good enough for me.

Thank you cats mother. My husband is on 40% tax. Just of threshold. I'm self employed and only earned 8k profit last yr so our income has gone down and we will lose this benefit

"In ten short term higher tax earners will still receive it. You have to stop claiming it- it wont be stopped. You will then pay it back through the end of year tax return so it will be like an interest free loan.

So if it is the only income you will still get it. Your dh will then have to pay it back later. Not you."

But if your dh doesn't know about it because he gambles/ drinks/ etc and you need to keep it secret you are a bit screwed when he either gets caught or you have to tell him...

(not my situatuion by the way, but not an unrealistic situation for a lot of other women)

No. They will ask a question on his tax return if he has children. They will then ask if he receives benefit. If he says yes it will be taxed. If he says no they will check and then apparently chase it up.

Admin nightmare. But you will still get it but it will be taxed at 100 per cent. Unless they have thought up a better system but this was the one outlined. David c said he hoped that higher rate tax payers would stop claiming but admitted that he couldn't make them stop.

I will still claim.

The problem is that we have a huge welfare state in this country which many of us feel engaged with and reasonably happy to support as a safety net etc. However when people start to feel totally disenfranchised ie, I pay in but get absolutely nothing tenable in my pocket, clearly not including NHS etc, then resentment will build massively.

I reckon they left it until 2013 in the hope that things would be better and they wouldn't have to implement this highly unpopular policy.

I can't believe they would do this politically so close to the next election. For the Tories it would be political suicide... All those Tory voters with kids?

Loser here, next year we lose about 1000 from tax and tax credit changes. Downhill all the way...

Missy k. We can do something. We can voice our outrage in the firm of written protest and demonstrating. Remember the poll tax. It can work if enough are behind it