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'?

I will have to go back to work full-time once my maternity leave is up as my childcare costs (NW London) are so high that I need to work ft to be able to afford them. And that's including childcare vouchers and WTC

Lots of people are in the ami position. Lots of us aren't employed so we don't actually have maternity rights at all never mind employers providing child care help and once you're over that threshold you don't get the tax credit things either which I have never qualified for. Now my youngest are 8 childcare should hopefully soon get less but they still have 10 week summer holidays, after school care needed etc.

I suppose the basic issue is who is financially responsible for our children - us or the state. If tax rates were say a flat tax of 15% like some Eastern European states we might find it more acceptable to pay so much for child care but if we're paying 41% tax/NI plus all the stealth taxes and the nanny's employer's NI etc never mind just the nanny's tax then it doesn't seem a fair balance and we're not in a country like is so widespread elsewhere where there are very low paid workers. if we were in South Africa or South America or even parts of the US with illegal labour we'd have very cheap care. We don't have that but nor do we have the good universal very cheap state provision you get in many other EU countries.

Where and how does one get childcare for £600 a month?!?!

£2000 sounds more like the going rate to me (West London / Surrey). That's of course £48,000 per year after tax just for childcare.

And you think I should work longer and harder to support you to stay home and look after your precious children... and when prey tell shall I see my precious children. I now work 50 hours per week (10 hours per day m-f) If the tax and spend monger PM in waiting raises my taxes any more (to give to you) then I'll be working on Saturdays too.

The theory behind the working family tax credit is that working parents are the key to lifting children out of poverty and that work should therefore always be better rewarded financially than claiming benefits. I do think the evidence supports that theory and that wftc is a good policy. There is also child tax credit which is aimed at ensuring that households with children are guaranteed a minimum income. Again, a good thing imo. It's just such a shame that claiming tax credits is such an administrative nightmare and so many errors seem to have been made, penalising those very families who need tax credits the most. I'm glad this thread has given you a different perspective, dragonhart.

Oi Amida, did you apply for reception 2007, or are you applying the next year?

hi Eleusis
did apply for nursery... 13th on waiting list but will apply for reception 2008. not holding my breath now though.

Can I just point out that there is NO SUCH THING as working family's tax credit! It was abolished and replaced by working tax credit AND child tax credit and the two elements are worked out separately. People without children will get the same amount of working tax credit as those with children. However, those on child tax credit will get a very slightly higher amount if they are working more than 30 hours a week, although they will probably lose it anyway because this extra income will cancel it out.

I think one of the real flaws with the system is the fact that if you work, the amount of tax credits you get is drastically reduced - by the time tax, NICS and a reduction in tax credits is taken off, every time you get a payrise you only see 21% of the increase you were given (changes in the budget mean that soon it will only be 19%) which is a real disincentive, particularly if you're on a low hourly wage to start with.

eleusis - it is wrong to think that WOHMs are in any way supporting SAHMs if and when SAHMs have partners who are in full-time, well-paid jobs and paying significant amounts of tax.

Xenia - would you, in your heart of hearts, been able to leave your children in the care of a barely literate immigrant?

Ah! That makes sense, Daisymoo.

DD1 got a full-time nursery place, 9AM-3PM.

But she's special needs so that's why.

Oh good! It's all sooo complicated - I made it my mission to understand the system after we got royally screwed over when we first applied, through no fault of our own and giving them all the right information.

While we're talking about the cost of child care; it really annoys me that people complain so much about it. It's usually the same people complaining who dont' think twice about expensive cars or holidays. You are paying for your children to be looked after, for heavens sake, and usually paying the carer much, much less than you earn per hour.

chocolateface, yes i agree - per hour my cleaner gets more than the nursery.

however, if the govt wants me to work, which it does, it should subsidise childcare.

Instead you don't qualify for any tax credit if your household income is above a certain amount, and believe me with the cost of housing/council tax/transport everywhere around here we certainly have no disposable income. That doesn't take into account MY income (when we would qualify) but household income.

and instead of just letting you net off childcare costs on your tax return, it makes the system so horribly admin complicated that only the big employers with big HR depts have the means to implement the scheme.

now that's just not fair.

Sm, good summary.
ALso once women get over the upper limit for these credit things there is no disincentive to earn more. The upper upper upper tax limit in the UK is 41%. The tax and benefits system is so complicated and we have always had various barriers to earning or working more which are still there. Isn't there still a 16 hour a week barrier for single mothers on low income with their credit things that makes it nust not work while their taking full time work unless it was very well paid full time work.

Anna, depends. Most babies just need a whole load of cuddles and love and the British in India with loving native ayas or whatever the word is had good child care although in the 1920s a British family in India shipped my grandmother out there because they wanted an English nanny so I suppose there are language issues. I just think it's find for small children to have a range of loving people around to look after them. I like it that our house and household might have so much going on - much older siblings and their friends, cleaners, nannies, people I work with and when he was here my ex worked with all coming and going and all chatting to the children so they get all that variety but I certainly accept they need to acquire language skills to have someone reasonably intelligent around them but on the other hand I think with us the nanny was great but we did want them at nursery school at 3 years old and of course all parents even if they work spend a lot of time talking to their children so it's not like we're locking them away for 5 years with a non native speaker.

Xenia - my father was born in India and his brothers and sisters all had ayas (one per child) until they went away to school, but their (very intelligent and well educated) mother was also around all the time in their early childhood and read and talked to them.

In large households with lots of to-ing and fro-ing language acquisition is perhaps less of an issue, but most families today are small and nuclear. It is self-evident that a small child left for hours on end in the sole company of a barely literate immigrant will not receive the cognitive and linguistic stimulation of a child who spends hours on end with an educated native speaker. And children need that linguistic stimulation from birth.

There is a world of difference between the cheap childcare (of the type available in France and Spain) provided by immigrants and a trained English nanny, probably many times greater than the difference between a trained English nanny and an educated English mother.

Cheap childcare is not a practicable solution.

Anna, I was referring to people who get tax credits and benefits as a result of not working. That money comes from people like me who go to work and pay tax. In your case, it does not apply. I don't see anything wrong with one parent working and supporting the family financially while the other stays home if they are both happy with that scenario. It wouldn't be for me. But you are happy with being a SAHM and that is fine so long as you don't ask me to pay for it.

Amida,
Are you aware that AC (coe school which I think is near you) has changed their entrance criteria? Kids in nursery no longer get priority in reception. And foundation places go to those who attend church twice a month rather than just once.

eleusis - OK, just wanted to make sure (though I didn't really think you would be advancing a socialist agenda...)

I'm happy to advance it but can't be bothered today - why for their own good women should be forced out of their conditioning to serve and clean up after men and be servile at home and put into the work place at least for the next 200 years to ensure they are as likely as men to run this country in all senses.

Dragon

I am a full time working single mum - trust me I get hardly any tax credit - £50 a month as apparently over the threshold and I still have to pay over £900 a month on childcare! On the other hand a SAHM I know who is also single gets benefits and over £200 a month in tax credits - do you think that is fair!

I also get childcare vouchers but that come out of my salary before tax & NI so saves me about £100 a month in tax & NI.

You are lucky you have a husband who is earning enough for you to stay at home (as long as that is what you want) - imagine paying for childcare on top of your outgoings already.

But Xenia, your thesis is just as bad.

People shouldn't be coerced or forced into doing anything by governments - the state should be at the service of the people, not vice versa.

While I agree that some women (but not many) are still conditioned to believe that they should be doing all the housework and childcare, I actually find, in France, more women conditioned to believe that they should be at work and their children should be in childcare.

Why is the second case better than the first?

Oh, and Xenia - in France, where women are conditioned to work, that has not resulted in more women in positions of power - the share of women in jobs of real responsibility is very poor.

So, on that basis, one could argue that when women are forced to work, they end up in the dross jobs.

If women want to run the country, they will do so when they wish.

Not when you are all voting for slimey Sarkozy instead of the lovely Segoline, Anna.