child benefit higher tax band - nothing in budget

[tea1tea2]

AIBU to think with all the rising living cost , child benefit higher tax charge shouldbe moved from £50000 to £75000 something? i am not earning that much but DH does .

It used to be a universal benefit. The attitudes on this thread are why I will always go out of my way to pay as little tax as I legally can in this country.

People always sing the praises of Scandinavian countries on this site. But they are about universal benefits no matter what people earn. In the UK we sneer at moderate/ high earners and think they should pay for everything, and means test any benefits. It’s depressing.

Swimming is important same as education. I am not spending on horse riding or on dance . Swimming is life skill if you think this way

@Testina
Well its way of thinking. I am saying system is complex for having it and returning it for earners between 50 and 60k .

why we have to return it but people with more household income can keep it?

It’s really not complex. It’s a form, once a year, that’s really easy to complete if you are single income from PAYE. If you’re in a more complex income situation, you’re on SA anyway 🤷🏻‍♀️

This isn’t about complicated or not a form is.

This is about you simultaneously complaining that the threshold should be raised because you neeeeeeeeeed it (for swimming lessons) and yet you don’t need it enough to complete a simple form for it. £1250 not worth 20 minutes of your time 🙄

I’m a higher rate taxpayer (so one of your paying for everything people) and I’d be happy to pay more tax for scandi-style service provision and a welfare state that looks after everyone, including those without kids. I’m not up for paying more tax for those on decent salaries to get a benefit that allows them to build their savings or go on holidays.

100%
If childcare was more affordable
More people would work and less would be claiming benefits but as it stands you have to be earning a reasonable amount to even co sided paying for childcare!

They should scrap it altogether and adjust the UC credit system (so means testing that already exists) so that lower income households continue to receive it at the same rate and it is tapered away for higher income households.

Gets rid of the one/two earner anomaly and targets the benefit generally to those who need it most.

Rainbow milk then it isn’t a Scandinavian style system that you are up for.

So if he is earning 55k you have to pay back HALF? Surely that can't be right! That seems like a lot just for 5k over the threshold :( How many children do you have?

That is right. It gradually reduces the more you earn over £50k, and you get nothing at £60k.

Also it’s the person earning over £50k that completes the form - not the person claiming the CB, so you wouldn’t have to fill out the form at all - your DH would.

You only pay back half the benefit on £55k if you aren't making any pension contributions.

Many would keep just about all CB on that salary because their pension contributions would take their taxable salary down to not much more than £50k.

It would be interesting to know how much the admin costs are re child benefit - the cap may well cost just as much to administer as the cost of removing it. Problem is a lot of people who don’t really need it would likely save it rather then spend it. I’d favour more support re childcare. Nursery costs are too high for many and will especially be so for the next generation who haven’t benefited from low interest rates re housing and have higher student loans they’ll be paying for longer (I paid mine off just after returning to work with my first child for example).

I agree with this.

It should either be universal, or properly means tested so that couples on a higher household income don't receive more in benefits than a single parent household as others are pointing out.

As it is currently neither, I would scrap it completely and put that funding into reducing childcare costs for families where both parents are working.

I know this is purely anecdotal but of the people I know that receive child benefit, most just put it in savings account for their children. One member of my family jokes that it pays for her cigarettes each week! It's infuriating.

The problem there is that in a lot of families you already have two parents working but relying on family/friends as childcare and this would be detrimental to them, especially if they are on minimum wage and living in an area that is very expensive. They wouldn't be saving money in childcare because they don't pay for it anyway (or possibly pay a vastly reduced amount) and they'd be losing money that they probably can't afford to lose.

I do think it should be means tested again the household income not the individual income, but I don't think scrapping it is the answer when we are in a cost of living crisis and I can see a lot of people in industries like hospitality and entertainment etc. losing their jobs soon (hours are already being cut, which for minimum wage workers is terrifying).

It isn’t even just 1/ 2 earner anomaly. And this is half the problem it turns into a sahm debate. People say well you are making the choice to be a sahm.
When I first had my kids we were both earning. My DH on 60K and me on 20K. So we never got it. We had friends on 45K each getting it. We were also paying more tax at the same time. I’m not saying we desperately needed it but it’s the constant disparities, Cliff edges and means testing in our system that cause such unfairness. Either have universal benefits or don’t have them.

The problem with this is it just cycles back around to people saying the means testing should be high enough to incorporate people with a household income of £55,000 (or £75,000, or £100,000, or...)

Means testing would need to be set at a low level to only apply to people in the circumstances you allude to (though to be fair, that's exactly what happens with carers allowance, disability benefits and JSA). And then you'd have people complaining about the squeezed middle not being able to have a benefit in order to build child savings accounts and pay for swimming lessons.

Just make sure your husband puts £5k in his pension. You'll get 40% tax off that (£1k extra into your pension, £1k tax rebate) and you'll be eligible for full child benefit

I know.

Goos god OP, you lazy so and so.

So you are being offered money, but because you can’t be arsed to SA on your income tax return, you want the limit increased?

You realise that statements like this is why some people hate seeing others get benefits because THIS IS lazy and entitled and quite Frankly greedy.

Grow up!

The problem there is that in a lot of families you already have two parents working but relying on family/friends as childcare and this would be detrimental to them, especially if they are on minimum wage and living in an area that is very expensive. They wouldn't be saving money in childcare because they don't pay for it anyway (or possibly pay a vastly reduced amount) and they'd be losing money that they probably can't afford to lose.

Yes, a surprising amount of posters on here don't realise how many parents rely on unofficial childcare networks. It's not even just about cost, it's availability of provider too. That's obviously got a lot worse over the past couple of years. Sometimes, what low income people need isn't a particular free or subsidised service. It's money.

Not to mention a lot of minimum wage jobs are not in sociable hours, there isn't childcare for overnight shifts and shifts starting at 3am, 4am etc. I've honestly seen advice such as 'hire a live in nanny' for people asking for advice on here. It's laughable, people in those situations don't have enough space for their own family let alone a whole spare room for a live on nanny - let alone how they'd even be able to afford to pay one. But it's easier to believe that people are poor because they're lazy and don't work hard enough than to recognise that the system is broken.

Mmm, getting paid formal childcare for shifts was often a problem for workers even before covid decimated the sector. It's even worse now.

And actually the hours don't even need to be particularly non-standard for the provision not to be there. If you have an 8 or 8.30 start and perhaps an hour's public transport commute, for example, or if you finish at 5.30 or 6, even in a city where there's in theory lots of provision, that can cause problems. And those are still pretty normal office hours and commutes.

The children benefit higher tax charge should be based on household income, not single income. Its unfair that a household with 2 people earning just under 50k each (combined income of say 99k) can still get child benefit for all their children but a household with one parent a stay at home parent and the other earning 60k get no child benefit (or have to pay it all back). Funny how they always count household income when it suits them but in this instance it works out better for them to look at individual income. It's ridiculous!