Tax childless adults

[Acidburn]

Hi all

Just saw the below article on LBC news:

www.lbc.co.uk/news/childless-tax-birthrate-uk-cost-of-living-paul-morland/

AIBU to think that this insane?

Most ridiculous idea.

This isn’t incentivising having children, it’s punishing those who don’t. Surely two different things?

They could make having children far more desirable by improving parental leave and pay or making childcare more affordable. Simple.

That article is extreme and I don't agree with the concept but there needs to be an acknowledgement of the importance of having children and a next generation. Having children seems to be viewed as a selfish act. It's as if so many people think they are doing the world a favour by not having kids because of over population and climate change but then what happens when there aren't enough young people to work and pay taxes? Society collapses!
I do think nurturing the future generations should have more importance in the narrative of society

Some people shouldn't be parents. The sooner we understand that the better.

Great way to rub salt into the wounds of women who can't conceive/have miscarried/experienced stillbirth.

And a pretty shitty thing to do to women who have every right to choose not to have children.

He also suggested women should be educated that getting pregnant becomes more difficult later in life

Most women I've met in life are fully aware of this - it tends to be men who aren't though I agree it's less well known that men's fertility massive declines with age as well.

But yes the taxing childless more is also mad.

so many people think they are doing the world a favour by not having kids because of over population and climate change but then what happens when there aren't enough young people to work and pay taxes? Society collapses

yeah right. People are always going to have sex and produce kids! But we don't need to give people incentives to have more than two. Climate change and overpopulation are massive problems. Propping up the pyramid system isn't a good enough reason to have loads of kids.

(for the avoidance of doubt, fining people for not procreating is a mad idea)

Childless adults don't get child benefits, so that a bit like a reverse tax.

Mad...there are people who'd very much like to be parents but can't (for various reasons, medical, financial, others). How do they fit into this?

Awful idea and thankfully one that will likely not be implemented.

It's a bloody stupid idea.

Unless the tax will cost circa £180,000 over an 18 year period it would still be cheaper to pay it than have kids so it's hardly an incentive.

Add in that it's grossly unfair to those who can't have children and ridiculously dangerous to financially incentivise people who shouldn't have children to have them for tax breaks.

So I have had a lifetime of sadness and sometimes tears at not being able to have children and now somebody is saying I should be financially worse off too?!?!?!?!?

Perhaps they’d be better off focusing on dealing with our dreadful maternity and post partum care, birth injuries being dismissed as ‘one of those things’ and extortionate childcare costs. Nearly all my friends are child free by choice and I don’t blame them in the slightest. After having DS I knew immediately I wouldn’t have another.

I think it’s a good idea. We all depend on there being a younger generation. We are all f**ked if there is no younger generation and that’s the direction we’re heading in.

At the moment it’s those having children who are overwhelmingly funding the existence of the next generation even though we all benefit from it.

I also agree with educating women about having children earlier in life. I’m always gob smacked by the number who wait until they’re in their 40s. Mumsnet is full of women asking if they’re too old to have kids at 40 something and they will always be reassured by lots of people who have friends who had babies in their 40s. But this is totally misleading. Often it’s not their 1st, often they’ve had to go through hell to have that baby (think several rounds of IVF), and nobody tells you about the thousands of women who did leave it until they were in the 40s only to discover it’s never going to happen for them. Only this week I was speaking to a friend in her mid 40s who has given up hope after multiple rounds of IVF and a horribly late term miscarriage. We need to stop lying to women and telling them they can have it all.

You’ll still be substantially better off financially than those who have had children

I don’t agree with it but how do we deal with overpopulation in general or is that not a factor

I know about demographic issue but still

Nah. Put an environment tax on anyone wanting to reproduce.

They are childless so would be taxed.

I think people are getting too emotional about this. In countries that have an aging population the consequences are quite dire. Who is going to be working and paying taxes to support all of these retired people, often with complex care needs? Surely better to address it before it happens?

This. Not to mention, how will this be judged how to tax childless people more? Will every childless person be taxed the same? Will couples be taxed more? When do you start taxing people this additional amount - when they turn 18/leave full-time education? (Great way to encourage teen pregnancies!). When do you stop taxing people? At retirement age, or when their own children turn 18, or leave home?
What about step parents? Parents who adopt? They haven't had children themselves, so haven't actually increased the population number, but they are the ones bringing the child up (and facing the costs of having to do this). Will the birth parents then be charged the additional tax? (I fear for those children who need to be taken into care, in this situation, if birth parents don't want the extra tax.)
Not to mention it's just a kick in the teeth for those who want, but can't have children.

As a childless adult (not through choice, we're struggling to conceive), I do not support this. What I would support, is the taxes that I currently pay being used to increase child benefit, or being used to assist parents more with ridiculously high childcare fees, or being used to increase statutory maternity/paternity pay.

This is ridiculous.

The cost of having children is insane, at least in the early years when you have to pay for childcare. I have one, I can’t afford another because I can’t pay my mortgage and £1.5k/month in childcare bills and I can’t afford to stay home either. Plenty of people may have no kids because they can’t afford it so instead of punishing them further financially maybe consider how to make having kids affordable?

But I’m from Sweden where childcare is almost free so it was definitely a shock to see how much it costs here.

Given that this originally was put in an article on the basis that "we as a country are facing a crippling labour shortage" I would suggest that a) the demographer who came up with it gets in the bin, b) the paper that printed it gets in the bin and c) Brexit (which has caused the vast majority of labour shortage over here) and all those who implemented it, also get in the bin.

But the people having kids are overwhelmingly not doing so because they are worried about the future of humanity, they're doing so because they want to have kids.

As another poster said, it's basically one big pyramid scheme.

I think, given that this person also suggested without irony that people could receive a telegram from the monarch upon producing their third child, that we're firmly in the realms of academic-demographic fantasyland here.

There are far too many nuances at work as to why a person (or a couple) might be unable or choose not to have children. In a civilised society you simply cannot have a situation where additional taxes are levied on infertile women or men, a majority of gay men and lesbians, and people on lower incomes, in order to 'incentivise' the fecundity of others.

I find it quite amusing that entire cohorts of people are right behind this idea, and yet these very same people will almost certainly get all beetroot-faced and huffy about the tired old 'girls getting pregnant so they can get a council flat' trope which is essentially the same principle in action.

Arguably those without children are already paying for so many services they don’t use (maternity care, schools, nursery hours) that this really does add insult to injury.