SAHM/P question? (personal)

[waitaminutenow]

Going off another thread and because I am extremely nosey...lol
My question is if you are a SAHM (or SAHP)...
How long have you been at home?
How many children do you have and what ages are they?
What does your OH do and what is they're pay (v personal I know!)?
Do you receive wtc ctc and cb?

I don't want this to turn into a bashing thread for or about anyone. It's genuine curiosity of how others live that is all.

SAHM for 19 months and due number 2 in October.

DP is a training and development coach and is on 18k.

We get CB and CTC.

A lot of us pay loads of tax. Yet the less well off think people who earn a lot hide their money and don't pay tax. We need a massive PR campaign showing how much tax higher earners pay, how half of our 70 hour weeks is money taken from us and a lot of the rest of what we earn goes in huge stamp duties and all the indirect taxes too. It is as if lower earners think every one on £100k illegally evades tax. First of all if you are under PAYE your employer takes the 47% tax/NI off before you even receive the money. If you are self employed and are law abiding like most of us you give the state that money.

Also those of us who have earned quite a bit of money from just about having nothing for a decade or two we tend to keep much of life fairly modest, cheap second hand car, old clothes etc - that is why we get back to mym Dickens quote - whatever you earn as long as you spend less than you earn you'll feel happier.

red

flutter is right. There are perfectly law abiding and moral ways of ensuring that your tax bill is correct

If a tax accountant who is an expert in their field takes a look there may be obvious savings that can be made which could be paid back into the business, used to employ someone to help in the business or given to charity

How has a sahm thread turned into yet another poor little rich girl has to pay tax thread?

www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jun/16/british-public-wrong-rich-poor-tax-research

The poorest ten percent actually pay a greater total percentage of their income out as taxes, because indirect taxes represent a proportionally much larger amount of their spending:

Flutterbutterfly, delighted to hear any tax saving ideas but I don't think under 25% tax on that sort of income is unfair ... I think we are doing well out of it and I don't grudge it. Consultancy has very high profit margins because we don't produce anything but ideas.

I've been a SAHM since 2010 although I do some work from home which brings in maybe £2k a year.

DCs are four and two. DH is a computer programmer and earns around £67k gross. We claim CB but have to pay it back.

My DH is a consultant, he pays less % tax. (Very good accountant.)

It's not poor little rich girl wants to pay tax! It's about being punished for being successful/ working hard. You don't earn a high salary for nothing, generally you work a 60 + hour week and your bloody good at your job and earn someone else shit loads of money. If your earning 200 k +your making/ saving someone else millions.

You probably also have private health, often private schools, higher band council tax, higher stamp duty, inheritance tax, private care home, you spend more.....you pay more in than you take out. ( which if fair but there is a line)

Doesn't want to pay tax!

SAHM but do part time voluntary work. 2 kids late teens, re-married 5 yrs ago, dh has 3 older teens. Dh self employed company director. His earnings vary hugely year to year, at the moment he's on a roll and will earn this year in region of £2m before tax. He spends money like water but j still use soap over shower gel as it's cheaper.. old habits die hard

How is that being punished? You get all the benefits of private care home, schooling, hospitals. All not options to low earners.

Its funny to see high earners complaining or saying they have a second hand car (dont most people?) As if theyre in just the same position. I think you get squewed by the people around you whichever end of the income scale you are and its hard to see life from the other perspective.

It's about being punished for being successful/ working hard.

I doubt he works that much harder than people on the front line in the public sector - say firemen, ambulance drivers, A&E nurses and so on - if at all. Like you say, he's gone into a lucrative industry, and earns ££££s. Like my DH, who happened to have the skills (and luck) to land a job in a highly paying industry.

I hate the argument that higher earners somehow work harder, deserve it more, because the converse of the argument is that people who are poor somehow 'deserve it'. Which is very a offensive and Victorian attitude.

Sorry to derail further, but I had to say it.

Of course there is a line to be drawn, but I think progressive taxation is right. I thought most people did.

Thatcher's children right enough....

"oh poor me paying for my private school and healthcare and giving my children opportunities and jumping in front of the plebs to have ones pesky ailments seen to"

I earn almost twice what my OH does, I'm under no illusion that we both work equally hard, society just rewards what I do more than what he does but actually it should be the other way round. We don't earn enough to pay higher rate tax, but I'd gladly pay more to help support vulnerable people in society. I think the tax rate should be higher and if people just paid up what they morally should rather than the minimum they can get away with maybe this would be a better society for everyone.

All I said was that higher earners pay an awful lot of tax and yet those not well off think we all evade it and pay virtually nothing which is a bit galling when you are busting your gut half the week for the state to confiscate all that money/effort. When just about half if confiscated then it starts not to be worth bothering to put in the extra hours so the tax take goes down.

We were just being asked what on earth does the money get spent on if you earn hundreds of thousands. Well the state steals half and then you need £30k a year for full time childcare and then your mortgage could be £100k a year but no I have never expected anyone to weep for me. The things that make most people happy I have in spades - never ever ill, no mental or physical illness, nice children.

I dont understand the "i have a huge mortgage" line of reasoning as presumabky you have a large house /house in a better area than someone on a low income!

I'm an F2 (junior Doctor/house officer)
last tax year I earned £34000
my OH is a sahd to four children. nine year old, six year old, three year old and a twenty three month old.
We get £104 per week in CTC. no WTC and 240 per month in CB.

You might want to re-read what you've just written. I absolutely understand that the more you have, the more you find to spend it on but you might also want to check into that link above and then have a think about who has a greater tax burden compared to what disposable income they have and what opportunities they have.

Surely, if you have a low income, you have to spend almost all of it on necessities. Some necessities aren't taxed, but some are, at 20%. So after income tax, poor people then spend a greater percentage of their "disposable income" on tax than higher earners do.

I chuckled reading the last few posts after just having a conversation with the husband about how much tax he pays on his pay.

The government don't half take a hefty chunk don't they, so why do they calculate everything on gross earnings instead of net when they're taking great wodges from salary before it even gets to you? They make our you're rolling in it when I. Reality the more you earn the more they take?

Never been able to understand it.

Sorry that was just a personal musing so may nohave make sense in the spirit of the thread.

Exactly WhattodowithMum and that's without the benefit of securing a privileged position for yourself and your children and still working long hours and driving around in a 2nd hand car if you can afford one at all.

I became a sahm in April.

Have three children; 10, 5 and 2.

My husband is Self Employed. This is his third year of business and he will earn about 49k. He has increased every year. First year was a part year and he made 18k then 29 and this year has shot up and will hopefully keep growing. That's his she's not the business income. He also has an employee now and I do his administration and tax stuff.

We get cb but it will stop after next year's tax return I imagine?

I don't think most well off people evade tax, but the fact is that even half of that kind of money is more than I can comprehend, so the mind boggle is still there.

I feel like even if 90% of it were taxed or spent on necessities I would feel as though I was swimming in cash with the leftovers. That's just because I can count on one hand the amount of times in my life that I have had four figures in my bank account. I'm really talking about six figure salaries here, I can see how £60k would go quickly, especially in London.

I don't think it's wrong or begrudge it - and I know logically that a person doesn't go from earning £15k to £150k overnight, so costs, expectations, savings, and the normal amount to have spare would creep up rather than leaping so dramatically. It's just a case of not having had that experience, I suppose.

Out if curiosity, what sort of business Jen?
Sounds like he is doing a good job.