To ask how many of you know about the Child Benefit Charge?

[Ballstothisdotcom]

I had to repay over £6k a couple of years ago. Had to get out a loan to do it. The children were mine and not my husbands and I had always claimed as a single parent so just didn’t stop.

Have just read daily mail sad face story about this happening to another family.

My sister and her husband have always claimed it. They have never had it questioned. I just wonder if HMRC are blanket mail sending and hoping people will be honest.

I genuinely had no idea about it until we got the letter. It also seems grossly unfair that two people can earn £49999 per year but if one person goes over it you have to repay it. In our case it was my husband who went over the threshold just slightly so we had to pay back from the day we moved in together.

Any one else?

Originally men (and a few women) got a child tax allowance. Then CB came out as said above to ensure all women had some money to feed their children because even some wives of millionaires were not given a single penny in some cases so the idea was every woman with children got it whether rich or poor. That universal approach was fair and successful and now has gone.

Yes, I agree. A lot of the most successful and fair welfare systems in the UK have been based on a principle of universality and that's gradually being eroded.

That's why the loss of an NHS that provides at the point of need and social housing have been so damaging.

The allowance was paid to mother's from 1946 onwards. Some of the same women who campaigned for universal suffrage were still campaigning to improve the lot of women and children and the insistence family allowance be paid to mothers was part of that.

The tax allowance was pre ww1 and only benefitted those in work, and the wealthy more than the poor.

The Family Allowance Bill had quite different aims as part of the postwar programme of social insurance legislation.

Ah, yes you're right. Family Allowance preceded Child Benefit but was only paid to families with more than one child.

I remember family allowance and the little book with paper vouchers in to claim it. I used to get sent to the post office to cash them sometimes