To think the current benefits system sets single parents up to commit fraud?

[Littlefluffyclouds81]

I am a single parent, I'm currently a student and earn a small amount from self employment, so receive some housing benefit, CTC, WTC and CB.

Let's say, hypothetically, my bf moved in with me (there is no real danger of that happening for a very long time, but let's pretend). He earns £50k a year. If he moved in, as far as the system would see it, my children are his children, and therefore he would be jointly financially responsible for them. I would instantly lose all of my benefits, leaving me around £1100 a month worse off. This would leave me in a position of being no longer financially independent, and feeling like I had to go to him, cap in hand, to ask for money. Money, which often would be spent buying things for my kids.

My bf is a very nice chap and all that, but I doubt he'd cough up a grand a month to provide for me and my children. I doubt there's many blokes that would. His dd would also lose out, as through suddenly having gained two extra children, the maintenance she is entitled to would go right down.

Bearing all this in mind, I can see why many single parents are tempted to move their partner in 'on the sly'. Of course this is very risky, but only for the single parent (usually the female). As the benefits claimant it is the single parent who will be prosecuted, the partner they'd moved in would have no repercussions, even though no doubt they'd done quite well in terms of their own living costs, probably chipping in a token amount towards food and bills.

I think this makes it very hard for single parents to ever have a serous relationship, unless they happened to be a high earner themselves, so benefits weren't an issue. Or I suppose if both adults were on benefits, as they wouldn't lose out there. I'm not sure what the answer is, other than a citizens wage (which will never happen).

Isjustanopinion, great to hear things worked ok for you, now come down from your high horse, OK?

I agree. It's near on impossible to better yourself.... I work full time at the moment but if I moved a man in I'd have guilt over their finances. It's a massive pride thing.

Affectively the government pays for single women to have a partner there in terms of the money they give them.... Which is why it's such shock when they move people in as unless your partner is earning a lot you are often no better off or more likely worse off once you added full council tax etc into the mix.

Not to mention if you are still eligible for tax credits you have to do a joint claim so they stop all your existing tax credits!

I think that Boo has a very good point, a maximum of 20% of net income as child maintenance is only fair if both parents have similar medium/high salaries.

When my son was little, the nursery fees would have taken 70% of my earned income from my full time job. The idea that the there is enough to support a child if you work full time and get the minimum required child maintenance is ridiculous unless you and/or your ex earn a substantial salary.

Ive been in this situation.

I considered myself financially independent. My tax credits paid for my childcare my salary for everything else.

I've never received any maintenance.

So my dp moved in (on lower than average pay) and we stopped getting the help with childcare costs.

Why should it be a step father, who will never have prr who is expected to pay for childcare rather than the biological father or the state?

I ended up out of work and was out of work longer because I could then only take a job that would cover childcare costs.

This ended up costing the tax payer more in lost tax.

It's a ludicrous system.

New partners should be expected to pay towards housing/ctax/overall household bills but I don't think their income should be assessed towards costs specifically for children they have no prr for like childcare subsidies which allow the mother to go out to work.

New partners should be expected to pay towards housing/ctax/overall household bills but I don't think their income should be assessed towards costs specifically for children they have no prr for like childcare subsidies which allow the mother to go out to work.

If your new partner isn't committed enough to take on the family unit of it will harm your finances, then stay living separately until such a point in time when they are committed enough. Or you no longer need significant state aid to bring up your children.

If your new partner isn't committed enough to take on the family unit of it will harm your finances

I think statements like this miss the point. My DH is committed enough - he covers all of our bills - but why should he? Why should my DH pick up the slack and not my DS's father?

The whole system is wrong really.
I think the CMS should be compulsory - and the CMS pay out regardless of receipt from the NRP. The NRP can then pay extra above the CMS rate if they so chose/a court orders it. I think that maintenance should then be included as part of benefits/tax credits calculations. I think child benefit should be amended so there isn't the ridiculous 50-60k cut off if one parent is working but 98k cut off if both parents work.

I also think a big part of the problem is that when a new partner moves in, you quickly find yourself as part of the "squeezed middle". My DH earns around £50k which on paper sounds like loads. However, we are actually no better off now than I was as a single parent when my income was £9k - I didn't pay any income tax and got housing benefit, tax credits (including child care element), council tax benefit etc etc which was all tax free. I don't know what the pre tax equivalent of my overall earned/benefits income was but it must have been fairly decent.

"I also think a big part of the problem is that when a new partner moves in, you quickly find yourself as part of the "squeezed middle". My DH earns around £50k which on paper sounds like loads. However, we are actually no better off now than I was as a single parent when my income was £9k - I didn't pay any income tax and got housing benefit, tax credits (including child care element), council tax benefit etc etc which was all tax free. I don't know what the pre tax equivalent of my overall earned/benefits income was but it must have been fairly decent."

So you were well off before and you're still well off now. Bully for you.

The other thing is that if a couple separate for the sole purpose of accessing benefits/TC? - that's surely morally wrong? But how is that any different to suggesting that a couple who don't live together stay living separately in order to keep benefits/TC?

Surely the state wants to reduce the number of lone parent families? I think it's very interesting that the blame falls on the new partner not being "committed enough".

Not well off at all Gwen - scraping the barrels in both scenarios.

How you can call someone on £9k (but in receipt of the usual benefits/TC) "well off" is quite strange!

Fouror - if your income including benefits came to the same as your share of 50k then you must have been quite well off. I thought the whole point of your post was to say that you're no better off with a DH who earns 50k.

£50k a year is £3000 a month after tax and NI assuming no student loans. Rent or mortgaghe is likely to be £1500. Put one child in full time childcare too so a single parent can work and you've no money left. So no £3k a month (the net pay of £50k a year before rent or childcare costs) is not a king's ransom.

It is our weird system. You can be on benefits with all rent paid on housing benefit and have as much after housing and childcare costs than a single parent relative who works full time. It is hard in a welfare state to ensure those not working have enough and yet not make it so that it's not really worth bothering to work.

"Rent or mortgaghe is likely to be £1500."

Well that wasn't made clear! It really depends where you live doesn't it.

And most on £50k will surely have student loans. And many new partners will be paying maintenance for their own children, so that's money out of the family pot that is assumed to be in the family pot when calculating tax credits/benefits/whatever. These can both be fairly hefty deductions.

I think unless you're over those humps (are they at about £70k/£100k?) then your standard of living can be much the same whether you're a single parent or a couple on what is assumed to be a very decent wage.

But yes - I don't see why a new partner should pick up an RPs lost benefit/TC income rather than the RPs child's other parent and I don't think it's fair to blame the new partner for lack of commitment. Nobody would suggest that the child's NRP should stop paying maintenance if the RP remarries or cohabits on account of the new partner supposedly being committed enough (or not) to pick up that as well.

"most on £50k will surely have student loans2

Why would MOST of them? Fees only came in around 1999, plenty of people who are parents now went to university before then.

In the areas where female single parents earn £50k (usually London) your rent is likely to b e £1300 to £1500 for a one bed flat. Your child care will be about £10k, often £24k for one child full time.
So if instead you stay in say the NE where I am from, on housing benefit and don't work you may well have as much spare cash at least whilst children are below age 5 as someone who works full time. They are not easy comparisons to make and of course I would always hope if people had a chocie they would rather work full time than burden fellow tax payers as a matter of principle (and look to their future career and preserving it by continuing to work as they have 40 years of working life once children are school anyway and if you lose your career in those 5 years it can be very hard to get back into it).
In terms of finanacial position with a new partner tends to be best if the partner is well off to get married before moving in as your legal rights are so much stronger if you are the lower earner spouse than just live in lover.

Gwen - okay, that just tells you I'm fairly young!

In an ideal world, CM will be compulsory and deducted at point of salary payment. Childcare fees should be part of the calculation for maintenance and the only people who would be given benefits are those who after this, do not have enough money to stay above the poverty line.

But for some inexplicable reason, child maintenance cannot be deducted from salary in the way student loans are, so the tax payer has to step in because the government doesn't want to thread on that.

But still - it's something to take into account when earning figures are bandied about. When I was earning £9k I would have been rolling around on the floor laughing at anyone who tried to tell me that a family earning nearly £50k might struggle but it's really not that straight forward, especially where blended families are concerned, and again where state support is included. I didn't survive my £9k years on the £800ish I took home. That wouldn't have even covered my childcare.

... And obviously, if you have been landed in a deep financial pickle because your ex forgot he is financially equally responsible to provide for his kids and there is nobody who can properly make him take responsibility, you are not so trusting anymore to believe that "my partner will take care me and my children as if they were his own" will hold in the long term. At the end of the day, it is often the case that the SP stop caring so much for kids they raised as their own, once the relationship bond is broken.

But still, this is not a tax payer problem. The problem is tradition making us woman believe that we can let another person take the responsibility to support us, and everything will be fine even when day in day out we see people loosing their jobs, relationships failing and even some parents dying leaving behind dependants.

Better not to move men in at all actually. I'm glad I haven't. Probably best gift I've given my children is never moving a man in after divorce.

Whereas I'd say it absolutely changed my children's lives for the better..!

The system needs changing so that if your partner moves out leaving you with kids you get your single parent benefits paid as quickly as they take them off you when a partner moves in.

single parent benefits

And once again....there is no such thing as a single parent benefit.

I think this attitude shows the entitlement attitude people have. It's on the state to support their kids. They feel "independent" and "in control" even though the money is being supplied by other taxpayers. Once the money is coming from their partner, it feels too "real". It feels scary and unstable - just like it is for everyone who only had children they could pay for.

That's why the govt is enacting welfare reform. Because otherwise certain people will always choose the govt.