Should families get a tax allowance for dependant children

[Clariee45]

Just a thought from another thread about there being no help for the squeezed middle who feel they are hardly better off than those on universal credit. Wouldn’t it just be fairer if those families not entitled to universal credit were given an extra tax allowance equivalent to the adult personal allowance for each child.
Why are adults given a tax allowance that acknowledges the basic costs of needing to eat and have a roof over there head etc and yet parents are expected to provide all this (plus 80% childcare costs) for their children completely out of their taxed income

You are calling me distasteful for pointing out your idea would financially penalised me for having a dead baby. And I'm the distasteful one 🙄But do tell me what percentage reward I would get for carrying a baby for less than 9 months? Or does the baby actually need to be born alive to get the pro rata. So if it lives for an hour you get 0.0006341958%. How... distasteful.

Also can you please clarify which test medical doctors can do to definitively say someone is infertile?

And how many hoops do infertile people have to jump through. Do they still get no state pension if they refuse IVF for example? Have you been through IVF, its horrific and should be forced on no one.

And if disabled people have to prove they are disabled and infertile people have to prove they are infertile, how do gay people prove they are gay.

What about people who never meet a partner? They get no pension because they are maybe not pretty enough, or sociable enough, or perhaps they are carers for their parents or just socially awkward.

How many women would be forced into having children with abusive men because they are approaching menopause and can't risk leaving them because they won't get a pension without a child. Or will be financially penalised without one.

Why are you monetising womens uteruses?

Making social conditions better in a way that makes it easier for people to start a family is one thing.

Financially constraining women to have to have a baby or be financially penalised is quite another

Meanwhile you make no reference to overhauling the CMS system. So all a man has to do is impregnate a woman. Then he can go self employed and pay little to no CMS and in either 18 years or at retirement reap the financial benefits

You know what, I’d take being unable to get a state pension as an immigrant over being unable to get a state pension from my home country because I don’t have working reproductive organs.

@fitzwilliamdarcy, I completely agree. I would leave the country as soon as the policy came into being and it would be a big 'fuck you' move on my part. Frankly if the country would treat me like a second class citizen because I don't have kids, the country could do without my 50k tax contribution per annum, why should I contribute towards supporting and educating other peoples children only to be treated with such contempt for being unable to have my own?

It would probably be helpful if you could clarify the amount you mean. Because in some posts you say 12.5k and in some posts you say 2.5k which is quite a difference for 2-3 children

Do you not think lower cost or free child care and a better funded school system would be better options? Plus proper efforts by the government to bring down the cost of living, make housing affordable and control rents from keep rising?

But if Our tax system was like many European ones that mean you pay less tax if you have children, then that would factor into your “can we afford it” decision.

@gogomoto This is not correct...All families of all income levels benefit from these US tax allowances. To the point where people receive larger tax refunds than they've actually paid in tax. I know situations where people have barely worked and received tax rebates. After functioning and paying tax in both systems, in can comfortably say the US tax system is far more streamlined and much fairer than the tax system in the UK. It also ensures that it always pays to work, even in minimum wage jobs, something we have got desperately wrong in the UK. GDP is much higher in the US because it actually pays to work, it also pays to succeed and do well (no Drs working part time just to avoid draconian tax laws in the US). IMO the first step to improving productivity in the UK is an over-haul of the tax system!

To add, I think the idea of people without children being penalised in anyway, in the present or the future is an abhorrent idea

@LimeCheesecake but it doesn't so it didn't.

I’m absolutely not wanting non parents or parents whose children are no longer dependant on them to be worse off than people earning the same salary

I mean, that’s exactly what you’re suggesting. You want a parent of a dependant child on £50k to get to keep more of that £50k than a non-parent on £50k. Leaving the latter worse off than the parent earning the same salary.

At least be honest about it!

This with bloody bells on. More than happy to pay tax to contribute to the health and education of future generations. That’s the social contract.

Unless you’re suggesting that I have no relevance to the social contract because my reproductive system is broken, in which case I’ll happily go elsewhere and help contribute towards their kids instead!

Personally I think one thing that should be done is to follow the lead of some US states when it comes to child support. Don't pay it? We'll take your passport/driving licence, don't clear the debt within 2 years? Off to prison you go.

Penalise the fuckwit men that just impregnate people and then skip off without a backwards glance. Stop them going on holiday with their new family until they have paid their debts. Make it less attractive to just produce kids without any thought on how they will be paid for....

I would absolutely support a US style CMS system

The fact that some posters on here are advocating monetising womens wombs rather than tackling the rather large issues that a higher number of women are no longer wanting to have children with unreliable men who will then not pay properly for those children shows the inherent mysoginy that still surrounds conversations around birth rates etc.

Start forcing men to be financially reliable and responsible for their offspring and perhaps birth rates would increase because women wouldn't be having to wonder if they could afford to raise a child alone before getting pregnant.

I’m a single parent. Ds23 lives at home,
ds18 has just started university. I have a salary of 36k. I have zero at the end of each month. HOWEVER my housing is paid, my bills are paid, my car is paid for, food stocks my fridge, freezer and cupboards and I can afford holidays.

Compare that to someone who struggles to pay all those things and I’m well off. Compare it to a previous poster this morning who was whinging on 95k and that’s a different matter!

Oh they understand it perfectly.

They just want someone else to pay for it all, not them. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Insommmmnia 😆😣Its after 9PM on Sunday Night, I just cant.

But CMS / Maintainance O hell yes! That should be enforced and chased with the as much force as the HMRC chase people for Taxes.
In the cases of deliberate evasion it should be backdated with interest.

Self employment brings other interesting arguments about payments and taxes and the "cash in hand" economy. But no one trusts a digital economy so its dificult to move forward from that one

You are putting laughing emojis in reply to your posts to me calling me distasteful for mentioning my stillborn baby just to be clear.

Perhaps if you can't justify your ill thought out discriminatory and distasteful suggestions at 9pm you shouldn't post them?

I think it's more likely that you actually can't justify them.

I mean a family is given a 12.5k tax allowance i.e. for each child 12.5k of earnings is disregarded from the calculation for tax so e.g. at the moment an individual has a 12.5 k tax allowance so if they earn 25k they only pay 2.5k in tax. If a single parent with 2 children earned 50k they would only pay 2.5k in tax rather than 7.5k
NI would still usually be payable on any earnings over the threshold of 12.5k a year, just like it is for regardless of other things currently disregarded for tax purposes such as pensions etc.

Yes agree with better funding for schools and housing.

Further funding for childcare doesn’t really sit comfortably with me, despite my entire salary and more going out in childcare at one point, so I am not anti working mother at all, I am very much for choice. Yes absolutely makes sense to continue with 85% of childcare costs to UC recipients as would be paying equivalent in extra UC if not working. I myself was a single parents before UC/tax credit childcare support and was ludicrous that was effectively forced to not work. However more funded childcare doesn’t sit well with me for lots of reasons. In many cases you will be funding people to work who would have preferred to be at home with their babies, doing jobs that the local teenagers would have had the opportunity to do otherwise and taking up nursery places resulting in mothers who really want or need to work not being able to get childcare. All seems a bit pointless, I would much rather just let their family keep more money so they can make a free choice. The other issue I have with more funded childcare is that when I was a SAHM then significant amounts of tax were being taken off us to fund the childcare of people much better off than us, so effectively felt like being punished for caring for your own children

Isn’t that what’s happening with benefits though?

increasing numbers of parents are not eligible for child benefit, just make child benefit taxable, problem solved :)

@Clariee45 so basically you are pissed that you didn't get free money for being a SAHP?
I refer you back to the only have what you can afford comment.

The other issue I have with more funded childcare is that when I was a SAHM then significant amounts of tax were being taken off us to fund the childcare of people much better off than us, so effectively felt like being punished for caring for your own children

Yes, it’s aggravating when someone suggests that you should pay more tax to fund other people’s choices around children, isn’t it.

But as you’ve said, a person getting to keep more of their own tax just for making one type of reproductive choice doesn’t mean another person who makes a different choice is losing out or being penalised!

Funding childcare doesn’t force anyone to work. It just gives them the choice.

why do you think your dhs tax was funding childcare for people who earned more than him? That really doesn’t make sense.

doing jobs that the local teenagers would have had the opportunity to do otherwise

Lots of teenagers could train as nursery workers if there was a better funded childcare system. Teenagers are far more likely to get entry level roles as nursery workers than replace a woman in her 30s who has had a child.

significant amounts of tax were being taken off us to fund the childcare of people much better off than us, so effectively felt like being punished for caring for your own children

So to be very clear, you don't like your taxes funding childcare because you didn't use it yourself so you felt like you were being punished for caring for your own children, but you expect childfree people to pay higher taxes (they would have to to fund your plan) despite not having children than require children's services and not to feel punished for this?

I firmly believe that everyone, whether they have children or not, needs to pay in taxes to support the next generation of children. I'm just slightly baffled by the notion that the only people that should not pay in taxes to support children are in fact the parents of those children, in case the money goes to subsidised childcare and that punishes them when they haven't used it 🙄

In that world if thats the case than single childless or childfree people should then be able to opt out of paying taxes towards funding school and anything child related like child benefit. Cos i'd use that tax to fund my own pension thanks very much. Because what reward do I get for paying taxes to fund children related things? A reduced pension thats what - at that point most people would say fuck off!

I really dont have to justfify or explain anything, to anyone.

You arent asking for justification your asking for specific details which i would have to base on blind guesses on financial values ( Guesses ) which you would then further ask specific questions on. Spoiling for a fight.
Thats largely pointless.

Regardless,
Im sorry for your loss.

Single person no kids only gets 25% off their council tax, dont you think they should get 50%? After all in a 2 adult home earning money its 50% per person.

Would you back this? Go out an show solidarity for those people so they get 50%? After all its only fair right, or is it that only people with kids should only be treated fairly