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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

feeling that tax credits are totally biased towards working mums?

572 replies

Dragonhart · 13/05/2007 15:23

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'?

OP posts:
FioFio · 13/05/2007 20:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

chocolattegirl · 13/05/2007 20:24

You have to work a certain amount of hours a week - between 16 and 30 hours I think - as well as earning a low-ish wage. I just ring up whenever I have a change to make and sort it on the phone .

MrsWho · 13/05/2007 20:40

What is the average salary for an adult ?

Judy1234 · 13/05/2007 20:46

£20k is the average adult salary in the UK I think.

Isn't there a 16 hours a week work problem which means many single parents can't work more than that or they lose benefits or credits or something which means they are better off just working part time hours than doing say 35 hours a week and not?

If you go back not too far husband and wife were seen as one person, one flesh, husband owned wife given to him in marriage as property by her father and all her income was in effect his and they filled in one tax return - he usually doing hers. My mother was one of the first women to try to claim the married man's allowance in the 1950s when she was supporting my father through medical school. Taxing husband and wife as separate adults in their own right rather than as dependants of each other was a very necessary move.

Gobbledigook · 13/05/2007 20:49

I thought it was £26K HOUSEHOLD income. Not sure of individual average.

sazzybee · 13/05/2007 20:49

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.

Well yes but single parents have to work or be on benefits - we don't have the luxury of choosing to be SAHMs

Flamesparrow · 13/05/2007 20:51

Just to update something mentioned earlier in the thread.

 
I spoke to tax credits today... 
 
They give up to 80% of £175 (assuming p/w) childcare costs. Any costs over that is not eligible. 
 
I assume the "up to" bit is reliant on amount of hours worked/income etc
VeniVidiVickiQV · 13/05/2007 20:51

I havent read all the replies, but, here goes.

Child tax credit is a form of tax relief. So, if you are paying tax, and have children, you are receiving a tax relief, except, the government rather cleverly take it off you before giving it back.

Childcare vouchers arent freebies, they are a scheme where your own salary is converted into vouchers before you receive it, which you therefore do not pay tax on. You can only do this for a maximum of £55 per week, and, it has to be through a registered childminder/nursery. Therefore, effectively your annual salary is lowered, but, you get tax free vouchers. You save on paying tax of about £600-£2000 a year, depending on how much you claim, and of course, what your other circumstances are.

So, she isnt getting anything that she isnt already paying out.

So, yes, YABU.

Gobbledigook · 13/05/2007 20:52

Tbh, all this stuff just gives me a headache - I honestly do feel quite fortunate to be out of it. I'd rather just earn whatever and learn to live on it than deal with the complexity of it all.

ChocolateFace · 13/05/2007 20:52

The average weekly wage in April 2006 was £447, so thats an annual wage of......

ChocolateFace · 13/05/2007 20:55

£23,244.

ChocolateFace · 13/05/2007 20:57

There seems to be a bit of grumbling on this thread, but when labour came to power 10 years ago the only benefits parents recieved was child benefit, I think.

MrsWho · 13/05/2007 21:00

Thanks Xenia thought it was something like that and £20K works out at £10 an hour ish.

The other thing about the p/t is right as I know if I work f/t (which is only 28 hours a week in my job) I earn less than working 17.5 +TC

FairyMum · 13/05/2007 21:02

I think its a common misconception that the government throws money at working parents.

rozzyraspberry · 13/05/2007 21:16

Many mums have no choice but go to work for financial reasons. The tax credit is like some others have said - it's tax back. I work 3 days a week and only get £40 pm for 2 under 5's just as you do.

ChocolateFace · 13/05/2007 21:16

£12.77 per hour (ish)

lunavix · 13/05/2007 21:22

Dh and I get £100 a month tax credits, and £100 a month child benefit, although I suspect we soon won't get any tax credits for a while as I think we owe them (their mistake, not ours)

We both work hard for our money, and while we don't expect that money, we do rely on it. I made a choice to work from home, but I don't consider it payment for having kids - they are MY choice not the governments!

I'm hoping when I go to Uni that we'll still get a bit of financial help, but yet again, I'm not expecting it or counting on it.

Judy1234 · 13/05/2007 22:07

Yes, but it's so complex and I doubt parents are actually better off than under the Conservatives for tax over all except now we have these very complex child tax credit things people on lower incomes and even some higher rate tax payers have to fill in loads of forms to claim. Huge load of admin with massive load of mistakes made, poor families given loads by mistake then it all taken back. One of the biggest disasters there have been perhaps after that of the child support agency.

Plenty of divorced single mothers don't do a stroke of work with chidlren age 12 and over and live off maintenance for life in idleness - not just single mother equals work or benefits. Massive numbers leech off hard working men.

QueenEagle · 13/05/2007 22:10

dh and I earn £44,000 between us now that I have just started working full time too. We get £600 per month in tax credits, but one of our sons is in receipt of dla so that makes a difference. We also receive £500 of our salary in childcare vouchers before tax and NI is taken off.

expatinscotland · 13/05/2007 22:11

I thought the whole point of tax credits was to help low-income wage earners live over the poverty line and off the dole and into work, not as extra income for the hell of it.

Doesn't sound like your pal's credits are a top up, but to help her pay for childcare because as a teacher she's not exactly on a City financier's salary.

chocolattegirl · 13/05/2007 22:16

"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.

Well yes but single parents have to work or be on benefits - we don't have the luxury of choosing to be SAHMs"

I suspect that this is the whole rationale behind the WTC - to make it more attractive for single parents to work as it's better to have more of the population in work for various reasons (looks better internationally as well as having more money sloshing around the system) than claiming benefits. Even if you have to virtually bribe them back into the workforce in the first place with disguised benefits .

Sorry - since I read Office Life at the age of sixteen or so, it's made me rather cynical of Government initiatives. Even if the author does write a column for the Daily Mail.

morocco · 13/05/2007 22:18

is it cameron who wants to pay sahm's for staying at home? maybe I'll vote for him next then. ctc have been a godsend for us but I wish they wouldn't print on the form you get sent how much extra you'd be getting if you went out to work - just rubbing it in!

nightowl · 13/05/2007 22:19

there's no way i'd be able to work without tax credits. my childcare is nearly 80% of my wage. doing the job i do, in the area i live in, i could never earn enough to not claim wtc. just not possible.

i get no maintenance now whatsoever.

so it really is that or benefit im afraid.

SleeplessInTheStaceym11House · 13/05/2007 22:20

morocco i never had that on my form, if they can tell my how much id have minus childcare that would be even better!! might be able to work it all out then!! although i dont think i could leave my precious babies just yet....we cope.....end of

FairyMum · 13/05/2007 22:20

And where do you find the money to pay sahms for staying at home??

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