To think more outrage is needed over Tory threat to child benefit?

[flower68]

According to papers today Tory planned welfare cuts can't be achieved without further cuts to child benefit. George Osborne has refused to rule it out apparently. Such a cut would be massively controversial, hurt lower income families and is potentially politically toxic for the Tories. So why is no-one pushing them for a straight answer?

why wouldn't you recieve child benefit?

because I have three children - the loss of child benefit for one child would have, I think, a knock-on effect with the tax credit I receive for that child for childcare. I live in an expensive area - childcare is my biggest outgoing. The impact would be huge. And no, my income isn't great, but nor is it tiny either!

I might be wrong - if it's just child benefit and the right to claim tax credit remains, fine. But I suspect the real savings will be made with what not having Child Benefit will stop people from claiming on top of that.

exmrs I can tell you what the reasoning was behind charging; it's apparently 'to encourage separating couples to come to amicable decisions between themselves'.

Because presumably, the current system of massive scale dodging of child maintenance by the NRP is entirely due to the bitchy aggressiveness of RPs.
Charging them for attempting to track down the money they're owed is the only way to bring these stroppy cows in line.

Let's see how well that works.

So according to people on this thread I am feckless and shouldn't have children. Nice.

I'm a single parent who works part-time in a low paid job and relies on tax credits. I never planned to be a single parent and invested all my savings and redundancy money into my now ex-husbands business thinking it would ensure long term financial security for our family. The moment he walked out the door that financial security went too.

Working full-time isn't possible at the moment due to childcare costs so I work 25 hours around school times and panic about childcare in the holidays.

I don't waste any of the benefits I receive and it is carefully budgeted for down to the last pound. My ex pays the minimum child support he can under the CS guidelines which just about keeps our head above water.

What would you like me to do? I am very well educated (dual masters) and am doing my best to ensure a future for my children but I need financial help to do that.

Should we return to the days of workhouses so you can be sure I'm earning every penny of your hard earned tax money?

exmrs that's really bad. my ex doesn't support DC (lawyer and expert in dodging CSA). I haven't had a penny for years (he was violent, and I left and he's furious that I left and punishing me as a result). (He was perfectly fine and decent when I met him and we were all stable financially) but a lot can change.
Think very short term policy making. Costs down the line of those who lived in increased poverty pretty high across many cuts. In Camden for instance and Westminster now and other boroughs the play service has been removed. Youth problems, crime, drugs, gang culture are on rise in some parts of Camden. These relatively insignificant cuts to the budget are hugely significant on individual level when a parent can no longer afford to send a child to after school play, or weekend activities. It's only insignificant to those who either do not work or study anyway, or have lots of wraparound childcare at their fingertips [£ or relatives]. It's so regressive.

Sadly James a lot of people on marriage breakdown take it as their 'get out of parenting card' and bugger off wanting nothing to do with their children as they want a fresh start .

No one can force them to be parents even though they have responsibilities.

I would completely agree with cutting CB, on the proviso that multiples are excluded and that fathers MUST pay for their children. Whether Self-employed, out of work, whatever.

Jail time and punitive fines if they don't.

Why won't any government address this fucking joke of a CSA gap?

fedup ahhh I see what your getting at now, that they might try to slip that in the back door. I hope not!!

I'm suggesting he doesn't have a choice - they are his children.

Hugely controversial but if your exDH is earning such a large amount, but is successfully avoiding CSA and was a good guy during the marriage - can't the children live with him? Then he'd have to pay for all of their day to day requirements. He will have parental responsibility so he has to have them if you can't manage

because I was always their main carer? because I never left them? because they feel safe with me? because really, should children be 'cared' for by someone who couldn't give a shit whether they eat or not?

But mainly because my ex doesn't pay maintenance because he wants to hurt me. He plays games continually with the children and if they were permanently in his care, I would never see them again.

"why should the government pay for these feckless adults that have children but can't afford them?"

Because there's absolutely no evidence that stopping paying would stop people having kids?

All you do is make the children, who had no say in being born, suffer for their parents' contraceptive failure/divorce/redundancy/widowhood. How does that help?

fedup and because we shouldn't be placing children with a parent purely because they have the most financial security.

We should be making the parent with the most financial security pay for those children. I really can't believe in 2015 this isn't the law. Why isn't there a petition on this?!!

Hamiltoes, I'm not sure why you say that the child benefit of higher earners was "paid for by someone on half their wages". As the top 25% of earners pay 75% of all income tax in the UK, it's more like they were just getting money back that they'd paid in themselves. Contributing to the "social contract" that Owen Jones talks about in the article linked to upthread (and that the Tories are in the process of destroying).

Or did I just miss your point?

The cuts to CB were always going to be the thin end of the wedge. FFS, we are a rich country. It's pathetic that the minimum wage isn't enough to live on, that people who work full time have to be supported by tax credits. Meanwhile all we little people fight among ourselves about who is the most hard done by. talk about divide and rule.

What? You think a man who doesnt contribute towards his children financial is going to want them full time? Not very likely

He may not want them, but I take a wild guess that if he's lumbered with them, 99 times out of a 100, he won't deliberately neglect them so that they get taken into care.

Maybe there should be a rule that whoever earns the most gets custody, and if the man (as it usually will be) doesn't like that, he could pay his ex to look after their kids...

That's one way to force maintenance payments.

MrsF Maybe I phrased that wrong, simply meant by people much worse off than themselves.

I agree with you James it should be enforced but the cost of trying to push someone to be a responsible parent would Be huge.

Here's an example before my exh walked away from my son he would never keep to a routine of set contact times of whatever times he wanted as it interfered in his new hobby.
He dictated the only times he was willing to see our son and it was often 5 weeks between visits.
There was no consistency

There was nothing I could do as he told me its that or nothing. I had to accept he could pick and choose his responsibility when it suited him and he was opting out of his responsibilities but yet I couldn't opt out of mine when it suited ( not that I wanted to)

I would love penalties on bad parenting such as this as there is no punishment

Slightly off point but look into whether you would be successful making a claim against him on behalf of the children under Schedule 1 of the Children Act. Lots of lawyers give free half hour advice.

hamiltoes because self employment is all about the wider economy and there need to be 'tax breaks' to encourage people to give business a go. Successful business generates jobs, makes people pay tax, pays tax itself (sometimes...!). These are the loopholes the self employed are able to exploit in terms of child maintenance - essentially, the CSA have to take the figure that the HMRC accepts as income. And for the self employed company directors, income can be legally very, very low and even non-existent. Most of my ex's income goes through the latest girlfriend and his own income is next to nothing - so he doesn't have to pay anything 'cos he doesn't earn anything. He's screwing himself with NI contributions and pension etc. but he's not particularly clever enough to see the bigger picture. He's also in a profession where many clients will pay in cash - so that's in the pocket and not through the books.

Maybe there should be a rule that whoever earns the most gets custody

jesus wept. You will typically find that women earn less because they have gone part time and/or had time out of the workplace as a result of raising families. This impacts women's ability to provide for their children in the same capacity as men (forgetting everything else...). Children should then be ripped away from their main carer when their parents separate because they earn less.

My youngest wasn't born when my ex walked out. Perhaps the OW should have breastfed him for me? or the ex employed a wet nurse?

But my point still stands, that it wasn't being paid for by anyone less well off than themselves. After contributing the majority of tax collected in the country it was more likely they were paying their own child benefit (so just "money back" really) and the child benefit of plenty of lower earners too.

I rely on child benefit and tax credits. I work 16 hours looking after my dad (advanced alzheimers) and im paid £104 a week through direct payments to do so. My soon to be husband is terminally ill and his business is having to close due to his health. I cant get a 2nd job due to caring for dad and dp. I cant get carers allowance as i earn over £100. Without cb and tc we would be screwed.
I guess its dps fault for falling ill and not getting checked earlier due to working minimum 90 hour weeks....

Thanks Mrsfrumble, was going to post something similar but couldn't be bothered. Why do people think that people on 50k have 50k to spend in their pockets? It is more like 36k and the article I read earlier about cuts to CB suggests that the cut off for a family with 3dc will be the universal credit threshold of 39k. I may have made a huge mistake here, but I can't understand how the family on 50k are so much better off as not to need CB.