feeling that tax credits are totally biased towards working mums?

[Dragonhart]

I am a SAHM and I get the min working tax credit as my DH earns just over the min for getting more help.

I was talking to my friend yesterday who works 4 days a week as a teacher (their combined salaries are just below the top of the band of getting any money) and I was saying what I got now we have two children. I get just over £40 plus about £40 baby element. When dd is 1 and I have two under 3 I will get £40.

She told me that she gets about £160 a months towards childcare in vouchers on her and her husbands paypacket (not sure if this is classed as tax credit?) and £75 permonth for her only ds in tax credits.

I am not making a coment about whether or not people choose to work as I stongly believe that everyone should have a choice to do what is right for them.

I just think that I should be supported in the same way as working mums. Surely I am my childrens 'childcare'?

oh sorry. Didn't read thread

yes dragonhart you are right
pisses me off sahms are unworthy on all counts

Surely the more you earn the less you get? I don't get anything other than child benefit anyway. I don't expect it either - I've made my choices and I cut my cloth accordingly.

agree with idreamofdaleks

have also had a problem with tax credits. they are supposed to be 'tax back' but for lower earners the tax credit they receive can be so much more than the income tax that they will be paying. such as when I had one child and worked part time earning less than £100 per week, I was given over £100 per week in tax credit and another £80 odd per week in childcare credit. go figure.

the whole time I spent wondering how daft it was because I was desperate to stay at home and woulndt have needed half of that money to do so.

Ultimately the whole tax credit system is illogical since the lower earners often get paid much more back than they pay in. If everyone was paid tax credits on the same basis, the scheme would be bankrupt within a week.

I suppose it relies on either on some people's reticence/ignorance of the system to make a claim and the top earners keeping the pot topped up.

working tax credit - the clue is in the name surely

I get no tax credits, take nursery vouchers as salary sacrifice, DH's employers don't offer them, youdon't get them per child but per employee so if we had one child and worked for the same employer we'd get 2 sets, but we don't, we have twins and work for separate employers...very random system really

I get £10 a week in CTC but nothing in working tax credits, because me and DH earn too much £10 a week buys a pack of nappies for younger ones, or maybe lunch boxes for the week. We dont earn a lot, and tax credits takes nothing into consideration, including if your renting, paying morgage or in LA housing.
When I give up work with baby thats due in oct I will get £2500 a year! which makes no conparason to my wages, but then child care for DD 3 days a week is £300 a month, strauight out of my wages, which is a 3rd.
I think tax credit support part time low earner, rather than everyone, but thats the choice we make
L

That's an intersting thought Xenia. Presumably, we'd still have the NHS and state funded education.

we get bugger all help with money from ctc and wtc and my dh earns 18k a year, thats it....dont know the exact figurs but its summit like £40 a week for each or summit like that coz they cocked up last year and paid us too much.

however even tho we get very little help itsw more than nothing and at the end of the day if it wasnt there we wouldnt get anything so im grateful!

i think teachers are the exception rather than the rule - they get help with childcare and I (working for myself) dont get any. I'm not complaining - i think key workers should get help - just dont think it unfair as it doesnt apply to every working mum

in what sense do teachers get help with childcare? Most LAs don't offer childcare vouchers to teaching staff, I only get them because I work at an Academy so out of LA control.

Why are people at not getting any TC?

I can understand the implications of paying for CC but in respect of the WFC itself(not including the CC element) surely it just means you are in a position to support yourself instead of relying on the state which is NOT a great position to be in.As in if they f**k up (which happens to me a couple of times a year ) then I don't have any spare money for food/clothes etc

As gobble says she gets none and I don't. If you earn over a certain amount you don't. Isn't it something like £1800 per child anyway so not exactly a fortune and loads of form filling and errors in doling it out and over payments and under payments. In some ways I'm delighted I earn too much get it yet sitting here today doing my tax return (great....) at least I suppose all that tax is going to some good causes stay at home and working parents. Plus the £6bn Brown said yesterday had gone on troops in Iraq, Afghanistan etc. resulting in women's rights being set back in those regions which I suppose would suit his traditional Christian Scottish roots, wife who changed his name to his and who gave up work etc etc.... there is no hope except in Mrs Cameron who at least works albeit I think not full time.

God yes, I mean giving up full time work when you've had one baby die and now have another baby with cystic fibrosis who needs an extensive drug regimen and daily physiotherapy is just such a cop-out, isn't it

You are all right. I am being pretty ungrateful as the £40-£80 per month plus our child benefit does pay for our food and clothes and shoes for the los.

Without it we would really struggle, but we are very lucky and have our own house (with mortgage) and an 'old banger'.

It still seems like a pretty unbalanced system and not many people seem very happy with it for various resons but I suppose that if you have to work then you would really need that money to help with childcare.

I suppose that it does p me off when she complains about how poor they are and that she has to work when they have more 'things' than us and muchmore disp income but as many of you have said, I made my choice and I wouldnt chnage it for the world.

It funny how you can get so fired up about things (I was up half the night thinking about it!) then when you hear others point of view you suddenly feel that actually, you are really lucky.

Xenia, surely you wouldn't prefere one potential leader over another because of their wives working status?

I am a SAHM and feel that it was a personal decision between my husband and me. Because I am at home I don't personally pay my own income tax right now and I don't REQUIRE outside childcare, so a tax credit would not be serving the same person as it does for a person who wants/needs to work. DH pays income tax and gets his tax credits for our family.

If we didn't have enough money to get by, or I wasn't willing to make certain financial sacrifices, I would go back to work.

the same purpose

choc, yes but I don't know how the sums work out. How many people are over 18 in the uk that you'd give £200 a week to, deduct current benefits of most kinds and state pensions, remove the cost of all those benefits workers who would lose their jobs but they'd then get the £200 a week so add that back. I'm not sure if it would save us or cost us money but things would be a lot simpler and those who won't work but could aren't an issue as they still get the money too. Is it more than people get? If the basic state unemployment rate is say £40 a week - that's just a guess plus your rent - housing benefit that works out fairly neutrally and somoe of those people woudl then choose to work anyway as it did not affect benefits so would pay more tax. Single parent with 10 children might get more than £200 a week now though.

I don't know why we have to have such complex tax, national insurance and benefits systems. Apparently loads of women have been told they are due lower pensions than they shoudl have because of a computer error and they're not being told now unless they query it.

Aloha - want to make sure that you know that I am not talking about the many situations such as the one you describe where obviously a different set of criteria go into the decision making process .

i accept the siuation and it IS fair
however the government rewards workng mums - thus discriminating against sahms

Oh, I wasn't referring to anything you'd said, Rantum.

I think that the WTC/CTC is biased towards single parent families so a couple are effectively penalised for being a couple [with children] rather than two single parents. I think the upper limit to claim is something like 55k so one high earner in a family could easily top that and thus make their family ineligible whereas two single parents could struggle to make half that amount separately which would make them more than eligible to claim.