Media reports on tax credits cuts

[VivienScott]

I, like many others on the other threads, have been affected by tax credit cuts. I get working & child tax credits (single, p/t worker, 2 children) and will lose over £1400 net a year, just like many others. I work for the NHS, this is equivalent to losing 2 months net pay.

I'm hearing pretty much the same thing from lots of other people. People who don't have much money are losing a huge chunk of their income, and yet, it's hardly spoken about in the press. Everyone's saying what a great budget it is, no one is focusing on just how big a chunk of money people are losing. If people on low to mid incomes were going to be hit with a £1400 income tax bill from next year there would be outrage in the media.

AIBU in thinking the press are in on it too?

The Guardian has written a piece speaking out against it. I've just been reading it here:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/08/the-guardian-view-on-the-budget-low-tax-low-welfare-high-pay-but-also-higher-poverty

Yanbu. The coverage has been glossing over the impact of tax credit cuts. I can only think it's because the journalists haven't bothered to do the Mathis themselves. GO has played a blinder, the living wage stuff has focused attention away from the welfare cuts. Very clever of him.

YANBU in the least - Osborne glossed over the threshold change and made no explanation in simple terms, so I think many people missed it. With the media focus on the living wage (a term he's misappropriated anyway!) I think a lot of families are going to be shocked and panicked once April 2016 rolls around and they receive their revised TC award.

Yanbu. I was really shocked by other thread. Yet on my facebook geed there were many saying what a great budget it was. Hope none of them work and get tax credits.

Surely every single claimant whether a lone parent or a couple will lose money if they are in receipt of working tax credit .
Where if they are receiving wtc at the moment ,they were deemed to be in need of it .
I think wtc is on its way out .
Dreadful budget for the low paid ,people can't afford to lose thousands of pounds ,

They discussed it at length on newsnight.

It's not just WTC though, is it? We only receive CTC, one full time worker, one part time worker, household income 20,000 and we're set to lose about £1100 in tax credits in 16/17.

Lots of people gloating and tax credit bashing. The living wage as it is now takes into account the availability of tax credits for working families. The new living wage (which is less than the living wage anyway) is nowhere near what a family need to survive because tax credits are being cut so drastically.

Some of the threads on here are pretty disgusting tbh. I don't review tax credits but I really feel for those that do and are about to lose so much money. This country has become really grim.

*receive not review

It's really surprised me how little mention there is of it in the press. Lowering the threshold means i lose between £1200 and £2200 per year in tax credits, making me worse off than i was before i went back to college 3 years ago. I got the qualifications and the pay rise, but i'm losing a massive chunk of my income and will be much worse off. I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones because i earn an ok wage and live in affordable housing. I'll have to cut back a lot and possibly get a second job, but i can see that we'll be ok.

That's some of the most depressing positive thinking i've ever had.

But if you have a household income (and by saying household in assuming you mean across two people), that's two lots of extra personal allowance - so you'll not pay tax on up to an extra 2k of income. Which would cancel out most of the tax credit cut wouldn't it?

I didn't understand the threshold change, could someone explain it to me. Does that relate to WTC as I understand it currently you can receive WTC on earnings under 26,000 for one child and 32,000 for 2 children. On our award notice ot shows entitlement as 4750 and deducts 4750 due to income. We don't receive any WTC but award shows we are entitled. Their method for calculating baffles me at best. ..

Jonty - the increase in tax threshold, as I understand it, works out at about £80 per annum.

i dont live in a two person household and im not getting involved with someone just to get more money i want the ability to stay single and raise my children

For wtc you are awarded certain elements based on your circumstances. There's a basic element, then additional elemnts for working over a certain number of hours, being in a couple etc. Each of these is worth a certain amount of money.

The threshold, is the amount of earnings that is disregarded. Anything you earn over the threshold is taken away from your total award amount at the rate of 41p for every extra £1 you earn. What this budget has done is lowered the amount that is disregarded by about 2.5k and increased the rate at which your award is reduced by to 48p for every £1. It is a huge hit for a lot of people.

I find tax credits really confusing. Will the rise in national minimum wage make up for the horrendous decrease you are due?

sorry for my ignorance

ive worked out when i go back to work (hopefully next year due to needing the free hours for my youngest) i will be £2000 worse off than if i went back this year of course this year i have to pay more childcare costs which is why im waiting till next year

lunacy at its best

why cut off tax credits next year and not raise the minimum wage properly for three more years? so i can pull money off the fucking money tree i didn't ask to be a single parent i wasn't expecting this i could have coped if he had frozen it and i still dont understand is he cutting off tax credits for children or is he just capping it at two children born after 2017?

I'm properly shocked at how shit the newspaper coverage is - the only real insight anyone can get is on social media, if you can find it.

For instance, did you realise they've stopped paying most disability benefit - ESA increased rate - for most disabled people aged 18-67? Thought not.

There's still PiP, which a) pays pennies b) barely pays 40% of the people who qualified for DLA.

Most people unable to work will be getting JSA rates when they make a new claim, and increased 'help' to get themselves from a hospital bed into a job. We know what that means.

The sick and disabled are getting an income cut of at least 30%, not counting the loss of their PiP payments.

And as for trying to push the minimum wage as a living salary, George has got away with that, presumably beyond his wildest dreams. The papers just reproduced the fib/slogan verbatim. And did him an extra favour - by leaving out the vast cuts to the disabled and children.

I felt very depressed after reading & posting on a couple of threads on here last night, which celebrated the budget.

Depressed because there is such a gulf in understanding of what the budget will mean, and the automatic parrotting of Govt spin

Shocked at the total lack of compassion for those on low pay who will lose the most (and their children).

Awful. Makes me fear for the future.

Btw the best coverage of the Chancellor's smoke-and-mirrors budget is in the Daily Mirror.

I feel more sad for the disabled, mentally Ill and young people who never choose to be disabled or young and are being punished for it.
Tax credits are the least of the worry

Jonty - increasing the personal allowance is an increase of £80 a year. Otherwise we'd have been £1180 worse off. I don't earn enough to pay tax, only my husband does.

As a PP said though, I feel like one of the luckier ones. We'll still cope. Small mortgage and I'd say I'm pretty frugal.

Stopandlook no, I think for most people it won't. £7.20 is still low paid. A lot of low paid workers earn that already so their companies won't need to put their wage up.