To ask why child benefits is means tested in England?Do you agree?

[ddshocker]

Just that really? Why is it means tested in the U.K.? Do you think this is fair considering the financial abuse some women can be suffer even if their dh is a high learner!
In Ireland it's not means tested at all and it is double the U.K. amount...why is the U.K. so adamant in making it unfair!?

@LowlandLucky

My ex husband earned a good wage but i rarely saw a penny of it other than a monthly big shop, i used every single penny of my then family allowance on my children, i really don't know what i would have down without it. It paid for every item of clothing and footwear and also paid for school trips.

I hear you Lucky. Me too.

We claim it to ensure my NI is paid but pay it all back. I work 22.5 hours as admin in the NHS, husband is in a managerial role.

@Franticbutterfly

We claim it to ensure my NI is paid but pay it all back. I work 22.5 hours as admin in the NHS, husband is in a managerial role.

You could claim and not get the payment and still get NI credits. Plus would you not get the NI element as you are working and paying NI?

@Franticbutterfly

We claim it to ensure my NI is paid but pay it all back. I work 22.5 hours as admin in the NHS, husband is in a managerial role.

If you work 22.5 hours a week then surely your NI is paid anyway?

I thought the way it is claimed regardless then clawed back through tax on higher earner protected women suffering financial abuse?

I think it's fair that its means tested.DH and I earn loads, it is stupid enough that we get the 15h childcare without adding CB.

We are obsessed with means testing in this country rather than having universal benefits. Until we stop with this obsession people will always have unfair cliff edges and lose out.

We are better off now but when our first born was little DHearned just over the threshold and I earned a low wage. So we were both working (incurring all the costs that come with that ) and missing out despite having lower total household incomes than others we knew that could claim.

@OfstedOffred

I thought the way it is claimed regardless then clawed back through tax on higher earner protected women suffering financial abuse?

I think it's fair that its means tested.DH and I earn loads, it is stupid enough that we get the 15h childcare without adding CB.

Lucky for you that the childcare hours don't matter for plenty people the preschool hours make a huge difference.

But remember the 15 hours was brought in universally as a preschool education program not free childcare.
Upping to 30 hours is about childcare and seems daft that people who don't work also get 30 hours.

Some couples may choose to claim the CB but it involves a tax return to pay it back.
Its one argument to say an abused woman should claim it but the odds are if she's being abused financially she is probably being abused in other ways too.

CB should be paid universally or not at all, roll it into universal credit if your going to means test it.

It should either be paid universally to all or abolished altogether in my view. We need to simplify our tax system and the way child benefit is structured currently is divisive and pretty arbitrary. If it is a benefit then I don't see that people on lower incomes but with lots of savings etc should be getting it either (like other benefits).

Needs to revert to be paid for all whatever level of income. Higher tax payers more than cover their benifit.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

The current system is unfair. We have a total household income currently of £57,000 and don't get the full amount, but households can earn £99,999 and get the full amount.

Genuinely high earners don't need it. But its middle income families missing out.

This with bells on ^^

@Sowhatifiam

But the combined salary means both parents are working, so more likely to need childcare etc. the other household could earn more if the other person went out to work too. You don’t benefit from being able to afford to only have one parent out at work

So…single parent families? Is it fair that I earn £60k as a single parent and can’t claim it but a household with two parents on £30k each can? Don’t I need childcare too?

You really need a bit of a rethink.

Add to that you're also paying a lot more tax on your £60k than those 2 parents are paying on their combined £60k so you are in a much lower net position.

Stinks doesn't it?

@OfstedOffred

I thought the way it is claimed regardless then clawed back through tax on higher earner protected women suffering financial abuse?

I think it's fair that its means tested.DH and I earn loads, it is stupid enough that we get the 15h childcare without adding CB.

So when the financial abuser gets a tax bill they weren't expecting, I wonder how they deal with that.

*Sowhatifiam

But the combined salary means both parents are working, so more likely to need childcare etc. the other household could earn more if the other person went out to work too. You don’t benefit from being able to afford to only have one parent out at work

So…single parent families? Is it fair that I earn £60k as a single parent and can’t claim it but a household with two parents on £30k each can? Don’t I need childcare too?

You really need a bit of a rethink.

Add to that you're also paying a lot more tax on your £60k than those 2 parents are paying on their combined £60k so you are in a much lower net position.

Stinks doesn't it?*

It also means that many dual high earners can afford to both part any excess into pensions so that their take home is still within the threshold to claim child benefit.

A single parent just over threshold is less likely to be able to do that.

[quote apprenticewage]@Louisianagumbo but she was paying way more tax than you (to the tune of 33k!) , equally why should her tax bill fund you and your lifestyle choices? [/quote]
Of course she paid more tax, she was earning more! She had a lot more disposable income than I did but she was still given benefits from the state

Why were giving your friend money?
Don't be so deliberately obtuse. I was subsidising her lifestyle through the benefit system.

She doesn't sound like a friend if you were noseying into her income and resenting how much she had.
She's actually one of the loveliest people you could ever meet. I'm so lucky to have her as a friend. I can still object to her receiving money through the benefit system. I know it's rare on MN but it is possible to have friends who you don't agree with everything they do. She just claimed what she was entitled to. My argument is that she shouldn't have been entitled to it.
I knew what her husband earned because I used to work at the same company and I knew what the pay was for his grade.

Why were giving your friend money?
Don't be so deliberately obtuse. I was subsidising her lifestyle through the benefit system.

I’m not being obtuse. If you were paying tax on a £25k income and they were paying tax on a £100k income in no way were you subsidising her lifestyle. You were paying tax. They were paying more tax, even if you deduct CB from that.

@Louisianagumbo and why is that her problem...if you want more disposable income then maybe ask her what it is she does and how you can train To do the same instead of moaning about it.

I would see the fact that she pays more tax makes her more entitled than you to be honest!

@Louisianagumbo you weren't subsidising her at all. You weren't even a net contributor, which is fine but if anyone was doing any subsidising it was your friend.

I will say it again. This isn’t a policy which has the aim of helping all and particularly treating equally all those in middling incomes.

The aim if the policy is to provide a small additional support through an easy to administer system, that will definitely reach those on low incomes. It does achieve this. Everyone on a low income does qualify for it. Along the way, some other people get it too, but they are not higher rate taxpayer individuals. The government is happy for them to receive it because the administration via personal income is cheap to administer and this is a key criteria for a successful policy.

People forget that data on household income is not held. People forget that if an individual in a household earns £60k it is not a low income. Yes, lots might consider it middling and it’s not to say the family won’t face costs and not be rolling in it….but child benefit is no longer targeted at them. The state can’t afford for it to be universal now.

What irks people is not so much that they dint get it, but that some people they know who have a higher household income do. Given this benefit isn’t determined by household income, but has a threshold for individual income (reason for this explained above) anyone who meets the criteria gets it,and the government is happy about that. Numbers in this category who have household incomes of close to £100k will be small in relation to the overall profile of families receiving it. It would cost far more to launch a new system that calculated household income and awarded it that way.

It’s about the big picture, and not about making a policy which seems fair to those with an earner in over £60k, who feel irked that they know someone on £45k whose getting it when their household isn’t.

And don’t forget it isn’t a cliff edge policy. There is a taper. From £50k up, you do t get the full amount but you don’t lose it all until you’re on £60k.

Of course individuals can use the money for what they want, but it’s chief end isn’t to help middle class families pay for their nursery places etc. Don’t forget that £60k as an income is never within reach for the vast majority of people.

Personally I’d make the free school lunches means tested too. But I know administratively that would be very expensive and it makes sense to give it to all, not for any redistribution if wealth reasons, but simplicity and take-up. Tax and benefits systems have to consider a wide range of things to become ‘effective’ which lots of people seeem us able to consider. Instead, all some can see is that next door, which has 2 working parents who each earn £40k are getting it, but us here, with one higher earner, in £75k aren’t.

[quote apprenticewage]@Louisianagumbo but she was paying way more tax than you (to the tune of 33k!) , equally why should her tax bill fund you and your lifestyle choices? [/quote]
Ooo, that's tricky. But if you think about it, my tax was used to subsidise her children's schooling from infants all the way through uni, health, local amenities, police and fire to keep them safe etc. I'm not complaining about that because we live as a society where it all goes into a pot. But I still was paying a larger percentage of my tax in funding her household than I was to funding mine.
I understand that you're saying that her increased amount of tax in the pot funded more healthcare than my measly amount did. But my job enabled her husband's job. You can't break the link between low and high paid jobs. No high earner would be able to earn without the jobs that are done by low earners. That's society. I pay to fund services of other people's children. That's society. Yes, she paid more tax, but she also had more disposable income. Benefits are to support people who struggle to survive. If she could already comfortably afford to house, feed and clothe her children, give them a good lifestyle and take them away on expensive holidays and still have money left for investments and second houses, then she didn't need that extra benefit money, part of which I was providing through my taxes.

@Louisianagumbo I literally give up...you paid circa 3k vs her 33k what on gods green earth makes you think you funded anything? you were a negative contributor...you were taking out more yourself than you we're putting in. You didn't find her in the slightest!

I cannot understand the logic behind means testing child benefit, but not old age pension. I'm an OAP and get a pretty good occupational pension too.

Where is the logic between these two things?

Apart from the fact that many misguided pensioners vote tory.

[quote shouldistop]@Louisianagumbo you weren't subsidising her at all. You weren't even a net contributor, which is fine but if anyone was doing any subsidising it was your friend. [/quote]
I would dispute this. She paid her share based on her earnings. I paid my share based on my earnings. She still had a lot more left after our tax burdens were paid. Yet she was still entitled to a benefit that made her disposable income greater.
I'm not moaning or resentful that she earned more money than I did. She's one of my closest friends and one of the loveliest people you could meet. I'm lucky to know her. It isn't about her earning more or having more. It's about taking state money, which is already in short supply, and giving it to people who are not in need. It's wasteful and unnecessary.

[quote ddshocker]@Louisianagumbo I literally give up...you paid circa 3k vs her 33k what on gods green earth makes you think you funded anything? you were a negative contributor...you were taking out more yourself than you we're putting in. You didn't find her in the slightest! [/quote]
I was funding to a degree her child benefit. She might have funded more of it but part of my tax still funded it. How is that hard to understand?

The Old Age Pension (state pension) is not means teteted.

You qualify for it by paying in years of NI contributions. If you don’t work and don’t build up enough coins tributions, you either get nothing from it, or a reduced amount.

Benefits are available for the elderly who have insufficent income from either occupational pensions and state oension combined, these are means tested benefits,

[quote ddshocker]**@Louisianagumbo I literally give up...you paid circa 3k vs her 33k what on gods green earth makes you think you funded anything? you were a negative contributor...you were taking out more yourself than you we're putting in. You didn't find her in the slightest! [/quote]
This.

@Louisianagumbo if you’re earning less than £35,000, then you’re not paying enough tax to pay for yourself. There’s no way that your tax is paying anything at all to fund anyone else.