Page 11 | To ask about child tax credit cuts.

yellowbird11 · 2015-10-23T15:09:59+00:00

Is it inevitable and if so will it affect everyone? what a massive worry to all of you who are going to be affected.My DD works 16 hours a week and has 1 child. She'd love to do more hours as her child is at school but isn't able to. Can anyone give me any idea how much she'll lose, and when? I'm so worried for her because I know without these tax credits they'll be barely able to eat and keep warm. How can these Tory b******s sleep at night?

AllOfTheCoffee · 25/10/2015 12:10

I could apply for help with childcare now but until I have more hours I cannot afford to pay the difference and until I have childcare I cannot apply for jobs with more hours, unless anyone knows of a company who wouldn't mind waiting 6 - 12 weeks for me to start work while I add myself to CM waiting lists.

Despite what the Tories and the Fail believe life relying on WTC/CTC/HB is hard and atm, frankly terrifying.

I would clean public loos with my bare hands to be out of this situation. I'm not afraid of hard work. I've worked since I was 14, but until my youngest is old enough to take herself home from school, which given that she has ADHD and is mildly on the spectrum, with poor impulse control, could be well after she is 12, it's just not possible, that I can see.

But yeah, it's my fault. I left home and education at 16 to escape abusive parents and found 'love' with a man who also abused me and my children, so I guess I deserve it all.

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 12:25

Still, obviously we deserve to suffer, because after all my kids are responsible for their dad leaving us and therefore should pay the price

I don't want you to suffer. BUT, i'm a Tory voter and I am largely in agreement with TC cuts. The amount that has been thrown at people in the past in TC's is fucking shameful and a cut is well needed IMO.

I say that as someone who used to qualify for TC's. On a two-household income of £34k (at the time) with minimal housing costs.

Any sort of benefit, including TC's, should be in place to support low-earners to achieving a basic living standard, when earning power alone can't achieve that. Not to bring someone up to some ideal standard of what is necessary for a nice life.

AllOfTheCoffee · 25/10/2015 12:30

But the cuts are not just effecting those people Summer, they are effecting people who rely on them to achieve a basic standard of living.

I would class a nice life as being able to afford school shoes without having to save up for a couple of weeks and maybe a 1 short holiday a year. My TC do not pay for that. They pay for food and bills reasonably well, but don't easily afford extras and holidays are out of the question.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 25/10/2015 12:32

If they should support those who are the lowest paid why change the lower earnings threshold?

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 12:44

Tbh I've seen plenty of people saying they'll be unable to afford food without them. That they'll suffer, there's nothing they can do etc.

I've yet to see even one specific example where that is the case.

I'm not debating that many will be worse off. They will. The question is, whether they were receiving too much to begin with.

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 12:47

AND whether TC's have been supporting those that are 'worse off' due to their choices, not their inability to change their situation.

expatinscotland · 25/10/2015 12:50

'Any sort of benefit, including TC's, should be in place to support low-earners to achieving a basic living standard, when earning power alone can't achieve that. Not to bring someone up to some ideal standard of what is necessary for a nice life.'

But that is not what is happening with these cuts, instead, millions of working poor are facing poverty. All this talk about upping their hours is fine and dandy, but in this era of zero hours contracts, it's putting the cart before the horse.

But hey, Jeremy Hunt wants to recreate China here, a place where a lot of workplaces have suicide nets round them and which has an appalling track record when it comes to human rights.

Babyroobs · 25/10/2015 12:58

Summer - I totally agree with you, we too in the past have been entitled to large amounts of tax credits as well as child benefit for 4 kids. Two of us were earning resonable amounts in professional jobs and had a lowish mortgage. The tax creidts and child benefit were enough to cover the mortgage outright for those couple of years that we got them. I have a friend who has 2 kids and hasn't worked for 16 years. She has virtually no mortgage as her and her dh bought their home years ago when houses were a lot cheaper They get tax credits and use the money for a foreign holiday each year. Yet someone else on the same household wage in a more expensive part of the country with a high mortgage or extortionate rent really needs those tax credits and a cut could possibly be the difference between eating or heating. I'm all for supporting families with tax creidts when the kids are young and childcare expensive ( although I would rather see the money ploughed into free childcare), but it's ridiculous to see colleauges working one or two days a week when their kids are 15/ 16 years of age and getting hundreds a month in top ups. the system has been way to generous and doesn't target those most in need. It needs to change.

cruikshank · 25/10/2015 12:59

I don't want you to suffer. BUT, i'm a Tory voter and I am largely in agreement with TC cuts.

And right there is your contradiction in terms. If you support the cuts, then you are supporting a cut to my income and a cut to the income of 3 million people like me. I agree that people earning £34k which is way more than the average salary should never have been getting a state benefit. Labour did it that way so that the middle classes wouldn't squeal too much. It worked in the short term, but in the long term was unsustainable.

However. I earn nowhere near £34k. I work as much as I can, within the confines of a health condition that is incidentally classed as a disability. My housing costs are high because I rent. They are not going to go down. My childcare costs are high. They are also not going to go down, and as I said the 30 free hours a week is irrelevant to us. So you are supporting a measure that will leave us worse off. You are supporting a measure that will see us suffer.

I've yet to see even one specific example where that is the case.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies and many other non-left wing organisations have said that 3 million people - the 3 million working people who are worst off in this country to begin with - will face a drop in income of around £1,300 a year on average. Is three million examples not enough for you? Wake up and look at what is happening. This govt has deliberately brought in measures (raising the IHT threshold, cutting Income Tax for higher earners) that benefit those who already very well off indeed. They are absolving those people from their duty to contribute to a society without which they would not be able to earn the money that they do. And they are doing so by cutting the income of the very poorest of the working poor. You have voted for them. You support this. Fucking well done.

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 13:03

So you are supporting a measure that will leave us worse off. You are supporting a measure that will see us suffer

Being worse off and suffering are two completely different things.

3 million people - the 3 million working people who are worst off in this country to begin with - will face a drop in income of around £1,300 a year on average. Is three million examples not enough for you?

Examples of what? That they're going to have a drop in income? Of course cuts to TC's will drop peoples incomes - there'd be little bloody point if it didn't would there?

The massive drop that some people are due to experience are, IMO, because their TC's award was too high to begin with. Not because the Tories are stripping them of basic support.

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 13:08

I agree that people earning £34k which is way more than the average salary should never have been getting a state benefit

Oh right, so you DO support TC cuts then? Just so long as they don't affect you, and that you get to decide what the limit should be?

expatinscotland · 25/10/2015 13:08

'Summer - I totally agree with you, we too in the past have been entitled to large amounts of tax credits as well as child benefit for 4 kids. Two of us were earning resonable amounts in professional jobs and had a lowish mortgage. The tax creidts and child benefit were enough to cover the mortgage outright for those couple of years that we got them.'
'the system has been way to generous and doesn't target those most in need. It needs to change.'

But you were more than happy to coin it in, got yourself All Right, Jack, now fuck everyone else. Nice. How hypocritical.

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 13:11

But you were more than happy to coin it in, got yourself All Right, Jack, now fuck everyone else. Nice

That's very unfair. I would never criticise anyone for claiming something they are entitled to by law. You'd be stupid not to. If the Government suddenly did a U-turn and decided that dh and I were entitled to TC's you can bet your arse i'd claim them, even though we don't need them.

It's the Governments responsibility to set the limits and i'm no bloody martyr, nor am I drowning in gold bars so much as to refuse money that's thrown at me.

cruikshank · 25/10/2015 13:11

Your tax credit award was too high, by the sounds of it that's true at least. However, the people on the lowest incomes in the country are now facing a cut of £1,300 in their income. Their tax credit awards are not too high. They are not earning £34k. I am not earning £34k. I am earning nowhere near that, same as the 3 million people whose incomes will be cut by this measure are not earning that.

Typical tory. Happy enough to sponge off the state yourself despite earning significantly more than the average wage, and then rubbing your hands with glee at the thought of 3 million families who earn less than half of what you did six years ago having their household incomes cut.

And then you lot wonder why people call you bastards. Shame on you.

expatinscotland · 25/10/2015 13:13

That's unfair but yanking thousands from working poor people isn't? PMSL! The threshold for TCs has been decreasing for years.

cruikshank · 25/10/2015 13:14

Just so long as they don't affect you

No. Just so long as they don't affect people on less than half of £34k a year.

Babyroobs · 25/10/2015 13:15

Expat - I am not in favour of tax credit cuts for the poorest, I just think they need to be more fairly dished out. I am not a tory and did not vote for them. We got tax credits for a couple of years when my kids were very young and childcare costs for me to work more hours would have been extortionate. I don't think " fuck everyone else", I want them to be better targeted at the most needy although I appreciate it would be a logistical nightmare to try to take into account housing costs and costs of living in different areas of the country. I'm not sure what the answer is. I went back to work when each of my kids was a few months old and have increased hours as they have got older. We got help for a short period of time.

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 13:15

Typical tory. Happy enough to sponge off the state yourself despite earning significantly more than the average wage, and then rubbing your hands with glee at the thought of 3 million families who earn less than half of what you did six years ago having their household incomes cut. And then you lot wonder why people call you bastards. Shame on you

I don't even know how to respond to that. Go and have a lie down and a think and come back when you've calmed the fuck down enough to speak like an adult.

cruikshank · 25/10/2015 13:17

I hope that you gave all of your tax credit money to charity, Summernights - after all, since you believe in self-sufficiency etc, there's no way you would bung thousands of pounds worth of tax-payers' money into your pocket when you were on £34k a year, given that it is wrong that people on less than half of that get tax credits.

Wouldn't want to be a fucking hypocritical cunt now, would we?

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 13:17

The threshold for TCs has been decreasing for years

As was very much needed.

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 13:19

Wouldn't want to be a fucking hypocritical cunt now, would we?

Re-read my post of 13:15 in response to that. Mind yourself, you're asking for a ban if you keep going.

Babyroobs · 25/10/2015 13:20

I think the threshold must have been pretty high when we got them for a short while back around 2004/5. But then again my dd was on DLA at the time for a while so maybe that boosted the tax credits possibly ?. I know it seemed a lot at the time.

SummerNights1986 · 25/10/2015 13:21

I think the upper limit was around £60k once Baby.

Babyroobs · 25/10/2015 13:24

Really , that is high !! We were on nowhere near that kind of income !

expatinscotland · 25/10/2015 13:26

'Mind yourself, you're asking for a ban if you keep going.'

Don't you wish. She didn't call you that directly. And even if she had, it's a deletion, not a ban. This isn't Nethuns.