To ask about child tax credit cuts.

[yellowbird11]

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 bs sleep at night?

Cookie Monster - your posts assumes that most people claiming tax credits only work 16 hours a week - have you actually read the posts from many of us which show that is usually not the case!

What do you do babyroobs?

I hate these kinds of threads. Some people on here have no idea.

16 hours a week is very rarely 2 days of 8 hours. It is more like 4 days at 4 hours. Leaving it impossible to get a second job. Most employers dont offer full time work anymore.

I am a single parent to a preteen with health issues. I work just under 20 hours per week over 5 days. I get about one third of my childcare paid. Not 70% like the government have you believe. I have no time available for a second job unless i work evenings but then where will my child go. I also earn over the proposed living wage so i wont benefit from that or the increase in the tax threshold because i earn under 11,000.

I will be 1700 pounds a year worse off after the cuts. I live on basics. I dont drive, smoke, drink, have pets, buy new clothes every week. I buy most of my food from the smartprice range. I wear holey shoes.

I want to go to university and train as a nurse but i cant afford to. I want to better myself and rely less on the state but i cant afford to.

Boden, there are far more posts on the thread re people working part time easily than those saying all the adults in the household work full time from memory.

I'd imagine there are far far more claimants who work part time, have a second adult not working or doing the odd few hours than there are where all the adults work full time.

My other child works nearly 40 hours a week, but if she didnt have a partner working she wouldn't be able to pay the bills. It's a terrible state of affairs. Just a badly run country I'm afraid.

I started working recently.

24 hours as I'm also a carer for my disabled dh and for my son.

I will be losing some TC and while we will manage I am worrying about it. My situation is quite complex.

And no, I didn't have as many children as I have needing government assistant. But life had other plans.

I did make some unwise choices in my younger years which greatly impacted my earning potential. But now I'm trying to rectify that. So yes, I can take responsibility for some of the reasons I am where I am today but I can hardly take those choices back now, can I?

So if it makes people feel superior to say that those who will struggle need to take responsibility for their choices. Well, I just did, and now what? I guess I should just struggle because I deserve it for making bad choices in the past?

I wish the government didn't have to pay me a penny. I wish my children's father didn't die so I could have help with child care when my husband is really ill so I could work more. But like most people, I am doing the best I can.

The problem, by and large and as evidenced by this thread is that any concern expressed by those who are opposed to (or even cynical about) tax credits, is that it does become personal. By that, I don't just mean the 'Tory bastards' comments, as to be honest I don't even give those remarks the time of day, but with posts like the one from TogetherLand, where she justifies what she spends her money on - she doesn't have to.

No one needs to state they don't smoke, no one needs to state that they are looking forward to a life of not being dependent on TC, no one needs to justify themselves in any way whatsoever. It's the policy I object to and not the people claiming for it.

I am not eligible for tax credits: if I was, I would of course claim them.

My feelings on this matter are long and complicated - far too long and complicated to get into here - but politics can't be based on endless 'what ifs, what ifs, what ifs.' Yes, there may be some cases where a woman has varying shift patterns every week, with seven children (triplets followed by quads) an abusive ex partner and absolutely, utterly NO available work in the vicinity which she cannot leave even though there aren't any family to help with childcare, but to hand out sums of money on the assumption that every working class individual with children is incapable of working out these problems for themselves and finding a way around them is patronising and crippling.

In most cases, I don't think the outlook is about state reliance, but rather about an assumption about a minimum lifestyle and TC are part of that.

make me want to just gove up work pooped either way anyway

Dark I didn't actually call them that, but I can assure you that they'll be called far far worse before they're voted out.

Well the government have done a fine old job of turning people against each other. All you sheep who are bleating on about your taxes paying for people to work part time, can you hear yourself? You sound like the daily mail.

I worked part time when my children were young, I wanted to see my children and have a part in their life. I also wanted to keep working so I could maintain a career that I could carry on with when they became more self sufficient. I now earn enough that I don't get tax credits but wouldn't have got here without them. That is due to the high cost of housing. There is no way we could have paid rent without help.
All the people who are busy judging and spouting shit about their taxes funding others chosen lifestyles, you NEVER know what's going to happen in your life and when you may need help.

I was a single parent until 3 months ago. I was getting paid for 16 hours helping care for my father when in reality i was doing 50-60 hours. The government said he was only entitled to 16 hours care...my mother however was broken and needed me there more to help with him.
We are now looking at placing him in a home as i have to give up my job to take care of my husband.
I'll be a single parent again in the near future and the tax credit cuts will cripple us financially.

And I couldn't have worked full time as I couldn't have paid the childcare, before anyone starts down the 'having your choices funded' bullshit.

No, the government haven't. Do credit some of us with the intelligence to read around the topic and to draw our own conclusions, please.

The personal anecdotes are interesting, but not what politics are really about. I also wouldn't assume some of us haven't been through some interesting occurrences and emerged still not supporting tax credits

We both worked full time for 20 years (albeit in just above minimum wage jobs) before we had our twin sons. We planned on both still working full time after my maternity leave since we needed two incomes to pay the mortgage and bills.

What we didn't plan was for dts2 to have severe ASD resulting in me having to give up my full time job due to child care for him being non existent. He never sleeps a full night is often awake wandering the house in the middle of the night meaning I'm up too He needs constant supervision as he is a danger to himself. DH drives for his job so needs his sleep otherwise he would be a danger on the roads.

I simply can't work more than I do, so we will lose around £120 a month. Maybe I should just hand him over to the state to look after him to enable me to work full time. One thing I know is that it will cost them a lot more than they give me for doing so. He is my sons so my responsibility but I don't expect to be penalized for having a disabled child.

Of course I'm being flippant, would never send him anywhere so we will have to manage somehow... not sure what will give though, we live very frugally now.

I hate all this - just work harder, don't have kids if you can't pay for them etc. Be thankful that your life is panning out as you planned, it doesn't always you know.

I stated the things about what i dont spend my moneynon because i want those in favour of the cuts to see that Tax Credits are not a luxury but an essential for me. Without Tax Credits i wouldnt be able to live.

I didnt choose my circumstances. My husband had an affair. Maybe if he paid for his child and took responsibilty for his child i might not need as much state help as i do.

You've drawn your own conclusion and decided that people shouldn't get this help and, hooray, the government are going to take it away. Nice.

At the beginning of the year STBXH and I were together and didn't receive TCs, but he has had to relocate to a new job so is unavailable to help.

We have now split up and I find myself a single parent for the first time in 17 years. I can't work more than 16 hours at NMW because my employer can only afford to pay me 16 hours, and secondly it fits in with 17yo DS's 3 days at College.

Unfortunately childminders don't want to offer care for a 6'2" 17yo with LDs so I can't work on the days that he is off.

I have a degree and was a high rate tax payer pre-children, I didn't choose to have a child with LDs and I didn't choose for DH to relocate and then decide to end our marriage, yet here I am approaching 50 and dependent on Tax Credits to keep the roof over our heads.

Exactly together, I have fought with the csa for years to get my child maintenance paid. Dd is now 16 and he still owes me 10k

Jenna, the people who support these cuts don't seem to care about people in your situation. Luckily alo of people do and are trying to stop these going through.

People argue that families cannot manage without tax credits, but could it be ssid that the introduction of tax credits has actually fuelled the rise in house prices and rents? Obviously there are many factors as to why house prices have soared since around 2001, but people having more money by being topped up from tax credits must have some impact. Until recently, mortgage companies have taken tax credit income into account when agreeing how much to lend and now they are being slashed which will no doubt leave many a mess.

I wonder what the longer term consequences of these cuts will be. I'm assuming council tax will go up. The economy will possibly be effected by less spending as most of this tax credit money would have been spent in the local economy. Then will there be more cuts? Child benefit and pensioner add ons next do you think?

I am thoroughly expecting child benefit to go for families over a certain income, probably around the £50k joint income in line with those families with one earner earning over £50k who have already lost it.

Cherry, I do think child benefit will go or be restricted to one or two children.

I don't think council tax will rise much, maybe a couple of percent.

Some will swallow the changes but hopefully many will up their hours so there will still be money for the economy. Plenty of people spend who aren't on benefits so there will still be trade.

Babyroobs - there may be some link so maybe the government should look at rent and house prices as well as tax credit cuts. Cutting tax credits alone will not make rents and house prices decrease.

And winter fuel allowance should definately go for better off pensioners like my Dad who has a good occupational pension, owns his own home etc.