To be gutted that I won't be getting tax credits for 3rd child?

[GutenTag]

I'm just wondering what people's opinion is really.

We are trying for a 3rd child and I won't be getting any tax credits for this child as the government has changed the rules so that from next year tax credits are only paid for up to a maximum of 2 children.

I currently receive around £1k of TC for the kids and I would have received £4k for the 3rd if the government hadn't made the changes.

That would have meant an extra £250 a month. It's a lot of money for us. My DH works and I'm a SAHM. We have a £100k mortgage on a small house in a deprived area of town. We get by. We don't have much money left each month and I need to save literally for everything. I'm really really gutted. I really wanted 3 kids and this has meant that I'll be financially alot worse off now.

Of course I don't expect the government to "pay" for my children but it would have really helped, that's all. It would have eased the pressure off.

Just for the record we have never received any other benefits apart from JSA when DH was made redundant last year which was a godsend as we would have been homeless otherwise.

Do you think AiBU to feel/ think like this?

linds no we don't both work. Because there is just me. I'm under no illusions that I've missed out, due to the fact only two parent families like yours get to scrounge benefits to allow one to not work and support their dc, whilst still living a decent lifestyle.

If so many parents weren't like me, and capable of doing both jobs ft, there wouldn't be enough money to support the genuinely in need, and the lazy like you. Don't judge everyone by your own feeble standards, given you seem to think not using childcare and never missing a nativity is the main part of parenting they aren't exactly a standard I wish to lower myself to.

No, really why would it have jumped an extra £3000 for a third child? Under the old system. What was that all about?

Under the old system full tax credits work like this -
Annually you receive a family element of £545 and a child element of £2,780 for each child and depending on your earnings the amount is reduced.

The OP has 2 kids so if she had no income she would receive £545 + £2780 + £2780 = £6105.

Obviously her family income reduces that amount down to around £1000.

However if she had 3 kids she would receive an additional £2780, making a total possible of £8885.

However her family income means a reduction of around £5105 to the possible amount.

Leaving her entitled to around £3780.

I hope this helps make it clearer for people.

Well said Lurked

This thread is appalling.

I suspect in the end people like Linz will kill the golden goose in the same way people have done with child 3 tax credits. There is less tolerance for dependant women in today's society than ever before.
I can see an age cap for tax credits in families with an unemployed partner coming in. My advice to any SAH planning on going to uni when the kids start school to start sooner rather than later as their plans will get torpedoed when the government lumps them in with the likes of Linz and moves the goal posts even further. This is only the beginning of tax credit reform.

Meh, I am a SAHM and my DCs don't come home from school to a meal on the table, they get fed dinner at roughly the same time as the neighbouring DCs who's parents have to pick them up from after school care most days. I know a lot of childminders - they pick their own DCs up from school along with mindees, their mindees are just playing at the childminders house rather than their own, it's hardly different to going to a friends for a playdate.

It's also frankly bollocks that traditionally woman didn't do paid work once they had DCs, upper class and middle class married woman rarely worked, but working class woman (who were the bulk of the population) did usually continue to work after having DCs in the UK until really the post-WWII era, and even then a lot of working class woman continued to work.

It's not the best choice for the economy to have woman being long term at home - paying out for childcare to keep woman in work might mean a loss in the short term compared to the tax they pay, but when their DCs are school age and need less expensive childcare, usually they'll start showing a profit, I am aware I've taken choices that will reduce my earning potential for 20+ years (and so tax-paying potential) to cover 4 years when it would be a loss. Arranging a tax and benefit system that encourages large families and encourages woman to take extended time out of the workplace is not a good long term financial plan for the country.

I also don't believe i'd be the best person to look after my DCs, that would be DH - he'd make a much better SAHD that I am a SAHM - but as he earned £20k more than me when we had the DCs, it wasnt really practical for him to give up work. Many a woman nowadays who has "married for love" finds herself as the higher earning parent, or even just earning the same - yet it's always assumed it should be the mother to give up work.

Wow! This is fantastic news for someone who bothered to get off her arse and get a job at 15. I am fucking sick of paying for People who can't be bothered. I work my arse off to provide a good life for my family maybe you should think about that and some birth control op.

Benefits for people who genuinely cannot work- YES.
Benefits for lazy fuckers who can't get off their arses long enough to find a job - not a chance.
Benefits for people who deliberately post goady threads- stop watching Jeremy Kyle and find a job you silly billy

It really doesn't bother me if people get tax credits for children and I don't get any at all. I'm surprised at this response on a mumsnet thread of all places.
Two points to consider: the role of a parent is hugely important and should be valued in our society, tax credits are a good way of doing that for low income families. Raising children well is of benefit to society as a whole and likely does save money if done well as it avoids social deviance in later life. Secondly we need more young people to work and support our aging population, so we need people to have children.

I quite literally cannot believe what I am reading!! Gob smacked is an understatement.....shame on you!

When the vast amount of families had only one parent working??

The vast number of families had two parents working - most working-class women - for the last several hundreds of years - have had to work. It was only a small fraction of wives, since industrialisation, who haven't worked outside the home. In rural communities, women have always worked. In the mills, women worked. Most of these women were wives & mothers as well.

You need to learn some history.

Actually thinking about it further, it's really the baby boomers and post war woman who have given this impression that it used to be normal for most woman not to work, rather than it being the preserve of the rich and the 'comfortable middle classes' - even woman from the 'respectable working classes' used to work to some extent. It wasn't normal to be able to keep a family with only one parent working on an average wage - only when you went above average for the professional middle classes did you get to afford a fully non-working SAHM.

Assuming you should be able to live comfortably with a large family on one low income is not realistic. It never has been, it's just we've had a period when the state was prepared to provide the second income. That's stopped.

Raising children well is of benefit to society as a whole and likely does save money if done well as it avoids social deviance in later life.
The OP already has 2 children, having a 3rd because she wants to and expecting us to pay for it is selfish and unnecessary.

I think that the change to tax credits is pretty fair. It is not stopping people from having a family, in fact it is allowing people to be able to have 2 children even if they cannot afford them.

But to expect the taxpayer to then pay for people to have 3 and more kids is taking the piss.

Raising children well is of benefit to society as a whole and likely does save money if done well as it avoids social deviance in later life

and parents who work and pay taxes can do this as well as a SAHP. It is actually the quality of the parent and their parenting that is the most important factor here, and that isn't measured in 'contact hours' .

In fact showing children it is important to work and contribute to society at large is a good example to give the next generation.

Well said Lurked

You must be joking.

Or are you commenting on content and not tone?

Actually thinking about it further, it's really the baby boomers and post war woman who have given this impression that it used to be normal for most woman not to work, rather than it being the preserve of the rich and the 'comfortable middle classes' - even woman from the 'respectable working classes' used to work to some extent.

Yes. Then the huge post-war popularity of Bowlby's theories of child psychology had a long lasting impact too.

If you live in a small house in a rough area, have barely anything left each month and have to save for everything then either go back to work or save whatever you can and build up a nest egg before you have another child.

Lots of people would love another child but don't have one because they can't afford it.

I think that the change to tax credits is pretty fair. It is not stopping people from having a family, in fact it is allowing people to be able to have 2 children even if they cannot afford them.

But to expect the taxpayer to then pay for people to have 3 and more kids is taking the piss.

Valid point. Buy only if there is 100% effective contraception available to all or in the absence of 100% effectiveness then there must be zero barriers morally practically or financially to abortion on demand. Plus enough good quality education and eugenic prevention of fertility among people with low IQ to ensure that there is no one who fails to understand the consequences of getting pregnant a third time. Not sure I want to live in that world.

I would love another child but cannot afford it. Im 40 next year so time is ticking, but if we cant afford it we wont do it. Thinking about what benefits we will get did not even occur to us.

Lindsxxx I hold down a full time job as does my partner and I'm a full time mum. I work 8pm-7am my partner works 8am-6:30pm we swap over and my son stays at home with me during the day so yes it is possible. I work 3/4 nights a week to support our family. My son isn't missing out. So yes working full time is compatible with being a full time mum! And I'm not delusional

Working full time is NOT compatible with being a full time parent and if you can't see that then you're delusional. Nobody has the capacity to hold down two full time jobs. You just keep telling yourself that your kids aren't missing out as you ship them off to nursery/childminders/out of school club, I don't really give a fuck because I'm here for my kids. Always, no ifs no buts.

And with such intolerance of differing views/lifestyles than your own you just lost the sympathy of most readers of this thread.

I have 4 children - my husband is self employed- I do all the paperwork, bookkeeping, ordering ect this saves him needing to pay a secretary - I also run the house and do all the childcare - we have comfy times financially and we have scarey times - we are not in receipt of benefits but seem to have less than those who are - it's this that angers working people - but it's the fault of the system really as the people that take the piss only do so because they can - who's going to turn down free money !?
If I could have an extra £70 a week for doing nothing would I take it ? Probably if I'm really honest ! Things need to be fair but they are not -x

Haybott - exactly.
I work 4 days a week and dp works full time. Kids go to breakfast club at 8.30 3 days a week and I fetch them latest 5.30. 1 day a week I'm at home and 1 day a week my mum does the after school care. I hardly see that makes me an absent parent. We eat together at 6 every night. Dp is always home to help by bed time.
We are not rich by any means but I rarely have to say no to something because of the cost - school trips/activities/whatever. We live in a nice area which is quiet and safe.
I don't and won't feel guilty for working.

Buy only if there is 100% effective contraception available to all or in the absence of 100% effectiveness then there must be zero barriers morally practically or financially to abortion on demand.
I can see the point you are trying to make but at the end of the day the Government with all the will in the world can't make laws so that people whose contraception has failed them and then can't or won't have an abortion have different rights to everyone else.

Don't forget we are not talking about people having their first child, which statistically is more likely to be an unplanned pregnancy, we are talking about people having their third child.

It is a tough world and the taxpayer can't afford to pay for everything, I think that the TC 2 child policy is a happy medium.

There is always abstinence if you and shit scared of conceiving a 3rd child because you're on the bones of your arse!