AIBU about Tax Credits cuts,

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Commons back Osborne plan for tax credit cuts
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34260902

I don't claim anymore because I now earn enough to support myself - because I could work and progress my career as well as my life while being a single parent.

AIBU to think this is a total travesty and so many single parents are going to have their life's devastated by this - and what about people in domestic abuse situations who will now be more unable to leave?

Maybe I some benefits scrounger - but the tax credits enabled me to be a good parent and role model to my kids - without their feckless father affecting that .... AIBU?!

I can't remember who posted it but someone said a few pages ago that a set amount for families - that doesn't increase with the number of children - seems fair; I agree.

I don't feel hyperbole is helpful. Suggesting that families which were previously warm and well fed will be plunged into coldness and hunger overnight isn't accurate. The difference between feeding three and two children is marginal until they are teenagers. Heating a home costs the same.

Most working lone parents will lose around £1500 a year in 2016-17 compared with this year. Yes, there might be some who are getting maintenance and tax credits and can increase their hours and won't really be affected, but most of us will be, frankly, stuffed.

This is a deliberate attack with the intention of making lone parent families even poorer and less secure. For the facts go here www.jrf.org.uk/report/will-2015-summer-budget-improve-living-standards-2020

Black cloud.

We are not just talking about the two child limit we are talking about the threshold and tapper

The money those two children are getting will be lower

I don't disagree with that Sock but I do disagree with the claim that the plummet will be so dramatic that otherwise well fed and warm children will be plunged into absolute direst poverty.

Blackcloud heating a home may costs the same. However money that was previously being used for heating may no have to be used to pay for the rent. Or a third born child's school uniform. A child whose mother has had the courage to leave their abusive partner.

Then that all goes back to what others have said more articulately than I can.

Buying a school uniform will not cause immediate starvation.

Blackcloud have you purchased a senior school uniform recently. £200 pays for a lot of food.
Also I did not say a child would starve , I said they would be cold and hungry.

Buying school uniform and sticking it on credit could be the tipping point for some.

cateye I was broke! It's Ok, we are in a temporary council flat now, hoping to get a permanent house...One day! But, yeah, I wish I had bought years ago too. I thought back then that you bought a place when you were ready to settle down, which I wasn't. Hindsight is 20/20

Housing benefit ( for those that claim it) will go up when tax credits fall.

if children are cold and hungry then parents are failing at the bare basics
I wonder what the kindly folk at the hmrc think my children are eating at present. My failure was to think that the renewal form I sent in meant a renewal of our ctc. According to the folk at hmrc it doesn't mean that at all, it means we are arbitrarily stopping your credits despite the fact your only other income is esa for one person and carers allowance and the four of you can manage on that until we feel like sorting it out, usually two to three weeks but we're a little behind at the moment.

Also the family element of £545 per child which started in 2003 and has never been increased is being scrapped from April 2017.

Can someone explain in detail what is happening with CTC? I thought the only thing that was happening was a two child cap in April 2017 but I read somewhere that CTC is being reduced from £16,105 to £12,125. Can someone please explain what this relates to? Is this a maximum amount a family can claim in CTC? When will this change happen?

From April 2016 CTC will be reducing for most people, then from April 2017 the two child cap comes into play. Someone earlier in the thread gives a good explanation of how the tax credits start to taper off more rapidlyafter a certain threshold which is now lowered, so people start to lose tax creidts from a lesser income. Sorry I haven't explained very well, I'm sure someone else will explain much better soon.

poolander - your post demonstrates exactly what worries me most - that the reason there hasn't been a huge fuss about this is that most people didn't understand where the main cuts were coming from. This is because Osborne didn't announce it in his speech, and nor was it really reported much in the media for some reason, but it's right there in the text of the budget. It also sounds a bit complicated at first, but it isn't really.

From April 2016, the minimum amount you earn to be entitled to the full amount of tax credits is being halved to just under 4,000 per year. From that amount upwards, the rate at which your entitlement is reduced is going from 41p in the pound, to 49p. So they start cutting the entitlement much earlier, and the rate at which is cut is faster. This means that, depending on their income bracket, people are going to be thousands worse off next year. For our family, it looks like a two grand cut.

I agree it definately needs to be more widely reposrted. of the people I have spokn to about it, no-one seems to be aware, therefore I can only assume a lot of people are going to be shocked come April.

It was quite widely reported at the time of the budget. And even before the election, voters were warned that the Tory Party consider anyone on tax credits (benefits) to be a scrounger.

The same people stood by and watched the most vulnerable groups being sanctioned, having to use food banks and in some cases losing their lives, for five years but did nothing.

I hope some of them are fucking shocked tbh.

What I can't understand is how come those who would be potentially affected by these cuts had the stupidity to vote Tory to begin with? Did they not see this coming?

I know that the current government has done great wonders for the economy but for many working families and single parents April 2016 will be the start of extremely dark days indeed. My heart goes out to all those who may be affected.

poolander, I'm being lazy and just copying and pasting my post from 16/09:

All families claiming Tax Credits will be affected if their income is over £3850. All families with income over £6420 will lose at least £1233.60 ([old threshold £6420- new threshold £3850] x new taper 48%)

After that, they will lose effectively 7% of their tax credits, as the taper has risen from 41% (41p in each pound) to 48% (48p in each pound).

So the person earning £6420 will lose £1233.60 and the person earning £6421 will lose £1234.08, etc.

You'll always be better off (just) by working, but if you receive housing benefit and council tax benefit, it will literally be pennies better off by the time you take into account the reduction of those benefits as your wage increases.

Remember also, that as your tax credits are cut, for every £1 of tax credits you lose, your hb and council tax will go up by 65p and 20p respectively, up to your total entitlement, so the overall drop in income could be reduced to 15p in each £1, depending on your family make-up.

Flower, maybe they agreed with the majority of policies. No party can ever please 100%.

Some vote for who will net them the most, others vote for who they believe will be best for the country.

Cookie I would suspect that most people think that who they vote for will be best for the country.
Most people believe the majority of the country is like them, re-enforced by the fact their friends and neighbours are also in this group. Add to the mix, most of their social media is the same, because people are comfortable around others with a similar world view.
All this means, for all voters, what is best for them is also best for the majority.

Remember also, that as your tax credits are cut, for every £1 of tax credits you lose, your hb and council tax will go up by 65p and 20p respectively, up to your total entitlement, so the overall drop in income could be reduced to 15p in each £1, depending on your family make-up

Off the top of my head an increase in HB would not make much difference to many people say for example a lone parent carer of a disabled child working 16hpw at NMW with 2 other children paying for childcare.

He/she would already be likely to be getting full HB but income wise be quite a bit under the HB numbers, off the top of my head premiums would be £410 pw say childcare at £200 a week and his/her assesable income would be around the £345/355 mark so he/she would not be getting any recovery from the tc loss.

I'm only pondering here but I'm not sure in his/her situation that work would pay (to use the gov sound bite)

Yes, certainly in some circumstances it won't help. In ours, we have to pay around £50 pw towards our rent. So the first £79 pw of TC cuts would result in a rise of £50 in HB and £15.80 in CTB. So we'd be £14 ish pw worse off overall. So we could absorb up to £4108 loss, resulting in an overall difference of £720 pa.

However, we are 'lucky' that as DD1 has SN we get premiums for that and my carer status that effectively mean we're treated as having 4 children instead of 3.

My lone parent example is also a carer and one child has a disability.
But because she/he works in a low income he/she would take the full hit of the tc cuts with no ability to recover via HB

Yes, that makes sense. It's only possible to recoup if you have to pay any rent/CT in the first place.

There will be a lot of people badly hit. There's no doubt about it.