To be pissed off at the new tax free childcare

[childcarechallenge]

NC for this.

We have two DC in childcare and live in London. I'm starting a new job next month and my salary is 48K, after tax, student loan, childcare costs and tube to work plus a few other generally working expenses (clothes etc) I've worked out that I will take home less than £200 a month.

DH earns a good salary which is good because we almost completely rely on his salary for rent, bills etc. He just received a large bonus which pushes him over 100K which is the new limit for the new tax free childcare scheme from the government.

Essentially, between 100K and 120K after tax, student loan, the loss of his "tax free allowance" which is clawed back over 100K, and the fact that we will not be able to claim £4000 back on our childcare because he is no longer under 100K (This applies to BOTH of us because of his salary) means that of that £20K we are actually only £1800 better off. AIBU to think that this is complete robbery - DH works extremely hard, very long hours (sometimes 70 hour weeks) in a high stress environment and the government seem to take an obscene amount of his salary.

We have an opportunity coming up to move to a lower tax country in a year or so with his job and this just makes me really want to take it, AIBU?

You're not the first person I've heard get annoyed about it, a lot of my friends had to make the decision regarding overtime at the £40k mark. I think they ultimately decided that they had to bite the bullet if they wanted their career to progres

This. This. This.
It sucks when you go through the next bracket but you suck it up, feel grateful youre in a fortunatr position and get on with it. You may even have a bit of a grumble about it.
But you dont pine about having not enough money when you have a few hundred after your "essential bills" which include buying lunches out and new clothes each month. The more the OP returns the more infuriatingly entitled they seem.

We have to be grateful at a lot of thing including being able to read mumsnet...It still doesnt help with the unfairness of the tax system where it shouldnt discourage people to work harder and contribute to it. Thats the point. Many people come to London for this sort of salary and we moan the same thing. Many of you here already advised us which way to avoid paying this tax and why avoiding paying tax is ok. We dont mind paying tax, its just because this tax bracket isnt fair. (I didnt even know that we also loose out new 2017 childcare allowance before reading this thread). Then many of you say then "buggered off!", then without people like us contribute for tax how nhs or free education will work. People like Op and her husband need to stay in the working force as their tax contributing to the economy. The government has to make it fair for them so they dont leave the country, work harder and pay more tax.

What Maisy said.

its just because this tax bracket isnt fair

Many things aren't 'fair'.

It certainly isn't 'fair' that a carer gets £67 a week! That is more of a disgrace than 'only' having £200 a month left after everything has been paid!

Yeah but talking about how carers exist and stuff is like the Four Yorkshiremen sketch and so totally ridiculous. They don't, do they?

Even as a carer on pittance I still campaigned to keep child benefit universal as I totally understand the need for higher earners to see rewards and feel valued. My DH is a lower tax rate payer so we were never going to lose child benefit but removing it was just about divide and rule politics. I think the issue with the £100-£120k tax bracket is a problem and needs to be addressed but when somebody starts adding in costs for shop bought sandwiches etc it makes people get sidetracked and lose sympathy (I did too for a while as it seemed such a ridiculous argument). Childcare costs are a problem at all income levels because even if you are in receipt of maximum tax credits finding 30% towards your childcare costs can be a struggle.
London living costs are also obviously a real problem but I don't know how that can be addressed.

The person they are caring for is going to have an income, whether benefits, a wage or whatever, no-one only has £63 pw
What age can I send DS out to work? I thought about chimneys but he has CLD...

six do you qualify for the disability element of tax credits?

It's not 91% tax on a bonus! You have gone over a threshold for an entitlement which means you are considered able to afford it.

Paying for childcare isn't a tax FFS!

Sounds awful OP.

Meanwhile in Syria. ...

Puppup you could say that on every thread. my dh is sleeping with my mom and I'm pregnant with triplets. Oh well, its worse in Syria - suck it up buttercup

Greyerish
I can only speak for myself. I have zero issue with people earning lots. I have relatives who earn more in 3 months than i do in a year. And I also think that instead of a cliff on the personal allowance it should be phased out over a few wage brackets to make it fairer.

My major issue with the OP is that she spends a lot of time talking about how she has next to nothing and after essentials she only has £200 but in her 'essentials' are things many people consider luxuries. Coupled with some creative reporting of figures (which others have mentioned) and general sense of 'but I could be spending £800 on bags like my friends' she is really rubbing people up the wrong way.

Its not the 91%. Its that one income has gone up £20k, the other is about to begoing back to work earning £48k. Of that £68k it would be reasonable to anticipate a bit, quite a lot actually, of extra money to go around but due to the £100k threshold being crossed and high London childcare costs the OP's family are going to see only a tiny uplift in total family income. Thats pretty painful.

That is just how the tax system works, and you are only in this position because you (collectively) are very well paid. I remember my mum telling me about one if dad's pay rises that meant they were actually worse off (not worse off as in only got a small amount of it as one poster seems to think that means, but took home less because of benefits changes.) mum wasn't too upset by this because dad's salary was going up, tax systems aren't perfect, and paying tax is very important. But you can move overseas and stop contributing to the UK tax system for an extra couple grand a year if you choose.

Thats just it timeisnotaline, we wont be a couple of grand better off a year, all in we would be 40 grand better off a year - assuming i don't work. We are taxed heavily here comparatively. HK gives tax free alowences for wives and children.

I completely agree OP.

I cannot help but feel ridiculously over taxed. The top 1% pay well over 30% of all tax receipts and yet high earners are vilified.

i'd love to know where the govt got revenue from in each decade after WW2, and whether the balance has shifted more onto personal tax because of corporations tax avoiding, it seems people are being pitted against each other because the corporation tax issue isn't solveable by the nation-state but not sure if the stats bear this out.

I meant the tax difference childcarechallenge , as in 'I should be getting a few K more so I'll move overseas and show the Uk. I didn't phrase that very well I can see. But If you expect to move back to the U.K and receive healthcare that other people's taxes have paid for when you are older and the main basis for your moving is because you disagree with the tax then you are being extremely self-centred.

Life in these countries is quite different also, for you and your children. In good ways and in bad, with a chunk of that depending on how you feel about it. I am in London as a choice , with other choices being HK (and Singapore a few years ago - also very low tax) but I don't wish to live there.

That is the tax difference.

Im expecting that the housing allowance would only top up the difference between UK and HK although that would be negotiable. Of course its not the only reason, and we have paid quite a bit into the system, i dont think returning after a couple of years and then paying in again would be particularly selfish if we were to use the NHS when we are older...

I mean the tax difference between how much of your dhs bonus you are receiving and how much you think would be fair for you to be receiving

six do you qualify for the disability element of tax credits?

Yes we do, not full whack because DH is working full time. I really dislike having to claim tax credits because when I was working we were over the threshold and didn't even qualify for the childcare element and I feel bad for taking any benefits. But we have a mortgage to pay and children to feed and we could manage those things easily if we hadn't been u fortunate enough to have DS disabilities. It feels like there is a stigma attached to Claiming tax credits and that people who claim it are judged for rinsing the system. I wouldn't be without my DS though despite the hard work and relative poverty

^^unfortunate enough ( not sure why the keyboard knocked my n)

Haven't read the whole thread, was following till it got to 200 messages or so though.

Our family is similar to you OP. We planned to have children but our DS was an early surprise.

We found our selves renting out our intended family home and renting something smaller. We earnt at the time about £400 too much to get tax credits and other benefit. Employers (law firm) wasn't keen on reducing our pay just so we could benefit either.

we was £12,000 worse off than a family the same size doing the same hours as us but on minimum wage.

According to various benefit calculators available online.

It was pretty soul destroying if I am honest, and was a large factor of my PND, working for nothing, Only seeing my child for 1 hour a day Monday to Friday from 6 month old, yet not affording to eat properly, have a holiday or run a car etc etc.

I now earn the same as your OH and my DP earns the same as you.

There is never any real studies about the people on the cliff edge of the welfare system and tax brackets who really are thousands of pounds worse off because the system is basically shit. But I suspect there is a lot of people who are effected that just sit back and accept it as life,
Iike we did!

The whole system needs a reform. But until then, just remember childcare bills are gladly not for life! I can't wait to save £800 a month, in fact I have already booked 3 holidays post September when DS starts school (half term obviously, well actually one us for this June!)

Just checking six as I didn't realise initially when I had to give up work. Healthy pregnancy and scans so a huge suprose and I had intended to return to work.
The way I look at it I'm carer, nurse, SALT and portage. If I put him in nursery and com nursing supported / nursery provided 121 how much would it cost? And in relaitt its not even viable. Who's gonna sit beside my child for months on end in hospital? What would be the extra therapy costs be without me doing all I do? And the same for the other carers especially of children.
I feel like they're paying me to raise my child, a job I should do anyway but its the total lack of options on having anyone else ie nursery care for him.

childcarechallenge
If youre that set in Hong Kong and how great life will be there for you and you dont have to pay as much tax then why dont you just go?

Yes, theres more tax here than in some asian places but equally there's not thr same wealth disparity, people have (for now at least) free at the point of delivery healthcare, decent eduxation etc. Many countries with lower taxes are very much rich do well ans the poor try to survive. You're clearly in a position to do well in that kind of place so why dont you stop scrambling for sympathy and trying to prove how haed your life is and just make a decision.

We didn't know anything about benefits for disabled children mommagee at first. We spent the first two years of ds life struggling with both of us working full time (I went back when he was six
Months old) and dreading the next hospital admission as our annual leave and unpaid leave was running out fast. We had a fabulous nursery who could Cope with him when he was small (when he was well enough to attend), Eventually we had to admit defeat and I gave up Work. We didn't know about any benefits. We spent the first year living off our savings which quickly
Disappeared. We were getting quite desperate when his paediatrician asked us if we were claiming he relevant benefits. We had to go and check what she meant about benefits as we didn't think we would be entitled To anything as DH was working full time. So it is always worth checking that people with disabled children are getting the relevant benefits