DH and I going part time to deliberately reduce wages

[Bucketheadbucketbum]

Just working out the free childcare hours and actually DH and I will be muxh better off if we both dropped to 3- 4 day week to deliberately reduce our incomes. Would obviously be nice way to live too! Anyone else doing same? Seems mental but we've looked at it 100 times over and it's true!

Don't dress it up as altruistic.

OP is right.

The tax system is broken. The cliff edge is real. Anyone with basic maths and a grasp of human nature can see people won't work more for free. It's astonishingly naive to think differently. It's essentially having a go at someone for not doing voluntary work!

They are already massive tax payers/contributors and still will be if they do fewer hours. It is not immoral to work less.

The only pity is that early years funding isn't enough for nurseries and causes them difficulties.

If they earn under 100k they are entitled to it though. It's up to them if they choose to earn under 100k.

I'm not dressing anything up as altruistic but I am being realistic- if the govt create such a perverse system people will make decisions based on these cliff edges.

If your boss said "I'd like you to work an extra two hours this week" and you knew that working those two hours would result in you having roughly 1/3 less income for the entire year, would you work them?

@HistoryFanatic so she’s not even allowed to use the NHS now. You expect her to pay shit loads of tax for other people to use the NHS but she can’t?!! How much tax do you pay by the way?

@Zoe303 unless any other changes are announced you'll be entitled to 15 hours for your 3+ year old. Everyone is.
What's not quite clear to me is whether the expansion to 9 months to 2 years will also have the 15/30 hour distinction

My understanding is it will not - the 15 hours at 3 is because this is the part badged as for the child, so it doesn't get taken away if you earn too much in the same way as you can be a millionaire but still send your kids to state school - it's their entitlement to an education, not yours. The expansion down to 9 months is being badged entirely as childcare for working parents so I don't think there will be any 15 hour universal aspect.

Only just seen they are earning.

If you’re earning that much you really should not be looking to the tax payer to help you out. Shameful.

However, anybody on universal credit in a light touch group preparing to drop hours or not in a few months I heard will be caller to weekly appointments.

This is to stop people being so benefit dependent.

She can but pay private ideally so those who are poor dont have to wait for so long.

Not sure you’re being serious. If you got your set up you’d likely find people not hanging around to pay the tax at all.

Can you make up their shortfall?

@HistoryFanatic

I don't think that OP ever said she was being altruistic at all. Why should OP work more to be poorer? You wouldn't expect someone on UC to work more if it meant that they wouldn't get housing benefit and would have to move somewhere crappier- it is the same thing! It's the government who sets these stupid cliff edges. What is more, there are some places in London and the south east where, particularly now mortgages have risen, people need two big incomes to afford the not mansion that they are raising their kids in and OP may need to be close to London for work. The U.K. is screwed - there are a tiny number of people paying tax for everyone else and who spent their 20s toiling away in the office late every night and are going to try to juggle those jobs with having kids but the answer is always going to be to tax them more and more.

DH and I deliberately earnt 49,000 each throughout the DC's primarly school years. Doing this enabled us to:

1. Be there for school pick up 4/5 evenings
2. Pay almost no HRT after pension contributions
3. Retain CHB
4. Have a decent quality of living (Sept 2011- June 2015) by being a little bit careful including employing a nanny/ housekeeper for 8 hours ,we came home to cooked meal on the day of week we both WOTH

We only gave this up when we could earn circa 80K before that it wasn't worth it.

If I had preschoolers now I would absolutely work pt to keep my earnings under 100K, it would be entirely counterproductive not to.

Would you accept a tiny pay rise - say £10 a month - knowing that it would reduce your income after tax and childcare by 1/3? And that you would not get back to the position you were in before until you'd had a 50% pay rise?

It is also worth noting that there is a marginal tax rate of 63% between 100-125k,couple this with losing your entitlement to free childcare and anyone can see the logic. If someone has the ability to earn this sort of salary you can hardly expect them not to be able to work this out for themselves.

@HistoryFanatic and what’s your definition of poor?! Come on tell us how much you earn?

I’ll tell you something. I am not funding a health system I can’t use.

@Yoyo2021 what the fuck is shameful about spending more time with your children knowing that you won’t be any worse off financially?

Any why can’t you and some other people on this thread get it into your economically illiterate heads that the OP and people
like her are not taking anything from the tax payer? THEY ARE NET CONTRIBUTORS. Do you know what that means?

This thread has made me think the whole benefit system appears to have perverse traps into it to prevent people from working more as it doesn’t make financial sense - from those reliant on HB, UC, CB etc.

Those saying it’s morally wrong for those on higher incomes to use maximise take home pay in the system- no, it’s no different- it’s just relative.

Funny how none of the people on this thread criticising the OP will confirm how much tax they are paying. Presumably they are net beneficiaries and think it’s fine for people like the OP to fund their lifestyle choices but then throw their toys out of the pram when the OP wants to contribute slightly less so she can spend more time with her children.

This is a year old but explains the issue quite well, I think the government may have scored something of an own goal with high earners in the provision of "free" childcare

www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2022/10/04/marginal/

This!!!!
@Dibblydoodahdah it's frustrating me how people cannot understand this basic concept that OP is a net contributor. I'd love to know how much tax the people complaining about OP's plans are paying

@Hardbackwriter I think you're probably right there. Wish they'd be a bit clearer about it all though but the way you've described that makes sense.

Yanbu. As a single parent who earns about £70k, I agree the tax system is broken. Two parents on £35k would get child benefit, two personal allowances etc. But as a single parent I'm paying far more tax, whilst also paying the full mortgage etc. It is a crap system.

This is a great visual that explains it brilliantly. Look at what happens at 50-60 and 100k

These are figures for a single parent family with two pre schoolers in London.

I don't believe thise calling the OP unreasonable would accept similar impacts on their own finances.

I have two young children. I am better off earning £99,000 than I would be earning £134,000. The combined impact of the loss of tax free childcare, 30 hours for preschool and the reduction in the personal tax allowance - which all kick in at £100,000 - is enormous. I currently use pension contributions and extra holiday purchase to keep my income to £99,750. With my next promotion I will reassess, and if my children are still preschool age then I will cut my working hours.

I'm not working more hours for free. I'm just not doing it. And I don't believe anyone on this thread who says they would.

No, they wouldn’t. It’s easy to demand it but not do the same.