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!

Very few of us are net contributors. You have to earn over about £40k before you become a net contributor, and deliberately going below that makes you, by default, a net receiver which means other people are paying to support you. Making a choice to do that is morally reprehensible, in the same way as any other minimisation of income in order to receive income related support benefits.

They're going to be earning just under 100k each. So they won't be net receivers.

So you think it's okay for a couple earning over £100k EACH to have their childcare paid for them? Unfeckingbelievable.

Yes I know you were saying it's better as it's tapered.

On the single parent example, you mean if it was a hard threshold of 50k? And they were on the edge of earning just over £50k?

That would be take home of around £3200 per month, so yeh losing £140 of CB (for 2 kids) isn't nothing, but probably not worth limiting your career over by going part time. (And if we're talking about not doing hour or so here of overtime rather than part-time- that isn't exactly going to take away from UKs economy in any meanful way).

Also they are likely to either receiving child support for ex, or if not potentially some UC.

Anyway my point that there needs to be a threshold somewhere stands, whether it's tapered or not! Wingeing that you're not entitled to benefits as you earn too much, benefits that are meant to be there for people who are struggling, and that would be a small amount relative to what you earn is petty imo.

I think the point is so do it and enjoy the day off, rather than make out you're being forced to do it due to the awful tax system, and complaining about it. And recognise you are privileged to be able to take the day off in the first place.

You are assuming other people make the same value judgement and have the same circumstances or budgets as you.

'Petty' is in the eye of the beholder, particularly as there are some circumstances where a person might need to work harder or more and possibly increase work expenses such as childcare. Child benefit demonstrably isn't supposed to be there for people struggling, given that it was a universal benefit when invented and is now still available to households towards the top of the income distribution if the earnings are split between two partners.

And lastly, people who don't like the idea of others doing this often are very keen on the idea that it's a bad idea to limit one's career but again, this is a generalisation and a value judgement. Some people won't be limiting their careers by doing it. Others might and won't be bothered. Not everyone has the sort of job where they work up the ladder for promotions and need to put the time in to do it. Some of the people you're talking about here will be say tradespeople deciding if it's worth their while to take the extra job or not. You cannot just universalise your opinion and circumstances.

Me and my OH fall into this category. We currently pay about 200-250k in income tax each year.

We are tired of the anti-immigrant rhetoric in the U.K and have very little tying us to the U.K.

Fingers crossed that all goes to plan we'll be moving at the end of 2024 to a lower tax jurisdiction and will no longer by tax resident in the U.K. within 6 months of that. Public services there are slightly worse or similar, but like the U.K. we pay for private everything so it will be the same.

U.K. income tax system is very anti-inspiration.

I don't mind working 60 - 70 hour weeks for 10 years of my life if it means a better future for my future children, but certainly not to fund entitled people int he U.K. who think they can sit on their backside and be funded by everyone else.

OP SHOULD scale back her hours to get one of the few benefits that a high earner can get in the U.K after all the tax she pays in!

@usernamealreadytaken is it morally reprehensible to have your NI credit paid whilst being a SAHM parent?

@usernamealreadytaken what are your thoughts on childcare in the UK being the most expensive in the developed World?

There's always going to be some people who are on the border line of thresholds. And for those people yes maybe limiting hours to a certain degree might make sense. And yes for some maybe it won't impact their careers in anyway. But the idea that the amount of these people is so great that it's going to negatively impact the UKs economy I think is questionable.

Reduce your hours if you want. Enjoy the time with your kids. Just don't complain about being forced to do it because the of the awful tax system, and then also try and make out that the government is totally fucking themselves over as all these important people are reducing their hours which will clearly be disastrous for the UK economy..

Well said ladykale.

My preference would be a capped say 20% or 33% flat tax/NI combined and once you pay say £250k tax a year then no m atter who much you earn you have done your bit and keep what is over that or something ilke the Gibraltar tax system (5% on the highest income). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Gibraltar and none of the various allowances or childcare help - just allowing people to keep more of their own money and choose how to spend it i.e. freedom.

The fact that some people will always be on the border of thresholds and the fact that our system includes a number of bottlenecks are two different points. You don't address the second by pointing out the inevitability of the first.

On the subject of complaints, whining etc, how exactly would you like people to make the point that these disincentives exist, that fiscal drag combined with inflation is likely to increase the numbers potentially into both the 100k and 50-60k bottleneck territory and that this is going to have some impact? It sounds like your main issue is that you dispute how common it's going to be. But how can people who are more concerned about this than you are make that case without being accused of whining? Because the poster you replied to wasn't doing that.

It's fine if you think it's a risk that's being overexaggerated, although speaking as someone whose household are going to be taking action to ensure continued receipt of child benefit quite soon I feel less certain than you do, but we do actually need to have a way to discuss this. And why the fuck shouldn't people say that they think our tax system is awful? Bottlenecks and perverse incentives are a bad thing, and we do have them scattered throughout the income levels, particularly where children are involved. They're a feature of UC claimants just as much as they are of high earners. What's the problem with people complaining about bad policy?

The point is that for a lot of people going part time or reducing hours would impact careers, and that's why they would choose not to do it. That's not to say that applies to everyone. Just maybe not a significant enough amount of people for it to be an issue to the UK in general.

And yes petty is in the eye of the beholder, but if you're earning 50k a year / take home £3150 per month, being miffed about losing £35 a week in child benefit I think is on the petty end of the spectrum..

Complain about bad policy yes, but don't use it as an excuse or a blame it as a reason as to why you're working less / going part time, when actually you are benefitting from being able to spend more time with your kids.. and it's a privilege to be able to do so.

We're agreed that for some people it will make sense to reduce hours at bottleneck points and for some it won't. That's a given and not what I'm asking.

My question is how exactly people who think differently to you about the importance of these bottlenecks and the likely increase in the number of people who'll be facing them over the next few years can set out their concerns without being dismissed as whining?

Because ultimately, nobody other than you and maybe a few people you know gives a shit whether you think a particular action is petty or not. That isn't specific to you either, the same is true for everyone else on this thread too. People's personal moral opinions are not what this is about. It's at the very least an issue that is likely to grow simply because more people will be affected. Even if the percentages of people making the decision to work less stays at exactly the same as it is now, because of inflation and fiscal drag the numbers involved are going to increase.

Only if you're earning £100k while being a SAHP🙄

It is a reason why though. Even if it is nice to spend more time with the children.

This is generalising again and not even true in some cases. You don't get to decide what counts as beneficial in someone's circumstances and what doesn't, and people have no obligation to couch their discussion of their choices in language and paradigms that you've chosen. Especially as there's no guarantee they'll be spending more time with their kids by making that choice. They may simply not be choosing to spend less time, so what you're saying here doesn't even necessarily apply.

@usernamealreadytaken how much should a woman’s husband be allowed to earn before she forgoes her pension contributions? 100k is ok with you. What happens to her if he leaves her when it comes to pension time, or should she have been working instead of being a sahm in your opinion?

From a moral point of view, it's really shitty. It is the nurseries losing out.

High rate tax payers - of which I am one - contribute more because they earn more and can afford to.

Morally the right thing to do is pay for your own childcare since you can afford it and the nursery need non funded kids to run.

Exactly. Different people will respond in different ways and at differently pinch points. If you're in a professional career where you know another promotion which will negate the loss of CB (for example) is not far away then you might decide to suck it up. If you're deciding whether to work 38 hours or 40 in a job with limited prospects then you might not.

I'm definitely not whining either. I'm not impacted by the childcare issue as I'm in Scotland so why would I be whining!

But if you were starting from first principles and designing a tax/benefit/social care/healthcare funding system then it would be blindingly obvious not to create these cliff edges. It would also seem obvious that you'd want to avoid having income bands where your effective marginal rate of tax is higher than the band above. It doesn't make sense to me to go from (including NI) 33% to 54% then down to 44% then up to 65% then back to 47%.

I'd personally rather things like CB, childcare, Carer's allowance etc were not income based at all and that personal allowance was not withdrawn, but instead that headline tax rates were a little higher to compensate. I suspect once the resulting reduction in admin costs was taken in to consideration it probably wouldn't even be that significant. But I think it would reduce some of the areas where working harder is effectively discouraged

@usernamealreadytaken which shows how ridiculous you are. You are happy for people not putting anything into the system to still get a credit and be at home full time with their children but not for people who are already putting in far more than they take out to spend a little bit more time with their children and pay a little bit less.

How much are you putting in by the way?

Well if they drop their hours they won't be able to afford it will they. Arguably more people need to work more hours and pay into the system which benefits everyone. But they don't. With this in mind it's fine for the op should to drop her hours so she can spend time with her children to whom she has more of a moral obligation than anyone else. That's how the system is geared up. Until there's a radical overhaul for everyone, then I would definitely do this.

Crazy isn't it. The outrage.