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're right.

But this entire thread is predicated on the basis that one choice leaves families struggling and tax allowances should be made accordingly, but that the other choice does not leave anyone struggling and therefore no tax allowances should be made accordingly.

Pointing out that the latter is untrue is really bloody important, especially if those putting forward the suggestion that those without kids should be exposed to more financial vulnerability are doing so because they believe that it's impossible for them to be struggling.

Agree it’s a choice - but it’s not single people who are suggesting others should subsidise their choices.

@Alstroemeria123 Exactly!

Back in the late 1990s i was signing on (this was before minimum wage came in) and there were NO tax credits then UNLESS you had kids.
I saw jobs advertised that were £50 a WEEK (my rent was £48 then) and that was it. No top up UNLESS you had kids. But you try telling that to parents. At the time it was "why cant you take the job You dont have kids to worry about" Well i would have lost my flat.

And ive mentioned it on these boards and got gaslighted that it didnt happen.

@Oliotya no I don't agree. Isn't this part of the debate? I know your argument is about single childless people. It's the same argument people have mentioned though for a single parent getting punished if they earn well.

I remember the days of living alone before having my Son it is expensive I can see why those single without kids are coming from. I wouldn't say its a choice in the same way it is to continue to have kids I don't think its even comparable.

Why? Does child benefit no longer exist?

Sorry, that reads as snotty! Isn’t, really don’t know.

End of the day, nobody has to live alone. That's your choice. Society will collapse without chidren. If supporting families is an investment in our future, then so be it. Single adult households are a wildly inefficient use of resources (that goes for parents and childfree alike), which is why it's not and will never be encouraged. We need younger people, we don't need single people to have their own house. That's why it's not comparable.

Single adult households are a wildly inefficient use of resources

Could argue that sending your kids to childcare is as well. Would be cheaper to support COL for a stay at nome parent while the other goes out to work full time.

While we’re at it, supporting single parents is also not the most efficient way. Let’s support two-parent families only, rather than expecting parents to run separate houses.

I trust you’d support both of those ideas?

@Oliotya I'm a single mum...... who on earth do you expect me to shack up with?

My Son lives with me. Single adults are entitled to live alone though sharing is OK when you are you but everyone is entitled just like someone can have more than 1 child... but then you need to factor in the COSTS!

Young**

Single adult households are a wildly inefficient use of resources (that goes for parents and childfree alike), which is why it's not and will never be encouraged.

I'm absolutely wildly and passionately for encouraging single parents not to move their kids in with complete strangers. I don't care how wildly inefficient it is for them to live alone with their parent.

And, just to reiterate for the fifty-billionth time, nobody is suggesting that single people be subsidised. Literally nobody.

What I am saying is that childless people should not automatically be considered to be free of financial pressures such that they can bear the burden of supporting families. That logic appears to be underpinning the OP's suggestions and it needs to be challenged for that reason.

I'll live in whatever accommodation I can provide for by myself - no subsidies required from anyone else. I will not be living with strangers just to accommodate someone else's ideas about efficiency. I certainly won't be doing so just to make myself a better cash cow for financial redistribution to families.

Well of course nobody has to live alone. No one's parents have ever thrown them out. No ones ever left an abusive partner. No ones partner has ever died. No ones parents who they were providing live in care for have ever died.

Instead everyone lives in a utopia where they move seamlessly from home (not leaving behind a single parent) to a uni flatshare to a shared flat as a couple where no one will ever have to leave because they will never be punched or kicked or strangled or financially abused and they will then efficiently die on the same day leaving behind either two children living together or a child or more in a stable relationship.

How very neat and tidy.

Single adult households are a wildly inefficient use of resources (that goes for parents and childfree alike), which is why it's not and will never be encouraged

Adults and children should be free to live free from abuse which is why it is absolutely vital that it is financially possible to live in a single adult household whether that is with children or without

It's more efficient use of resources to let people 55+ die of cancer

No cost of cancer treatments plus they have paid in through work most of their adults life and simultaneously won't need a pension

Not necessarily a winning election campaign slogan though

It's also a more efficient use of resources to not support disabled people (I am disabled) and I tend to find a massive cross over between the sort of people who think childfree or single parents are a blight who should barely exist and certainly shouldn't have resources and the sort of people who complain about Bob down the road getting disability for his bad back when he was put in the garden yesterday.

The "I only want my tax payers money spending on people like me" sort of people. Most of whom are net takers not net givers in terms of their actual tax payments.

Singleness, or rather the choice to live alone, is no less of a choice than having children or not. You can't tell people not to complain that children are expensive and in the same sentence complain that living alone is expensive. Both are choices.

They are, but no one is suggesting that single people get tax breaks for their choices...

The government needs to stop spending our taxes on giving lucrative contracts to their dodgy mates

@CCTVcity dividends absolutely do count as income...taxable and on your P60

Being child free does not exempt people from societal obligations otherwise child free people could not rely on the ongoing tax contributions of the next working generation to pay out pensions

Can you pointto where anyone has said child free people should be exempt?

It costs in excess of £2.5 k per year to raise a child. Yes, it does. There are some financial benefits but they don't offset the cost. Unless a country has significantly low birth rate they will not provide financial incentives to reproduce - too high a risk.

Education from 5-18 takes a substantial amount from the public purse. That's how taxation works. Maybe you should research how much you take before thinking you should give less?

@CBAanymoreTBH absolutely. Its alright pushing people to have all these kids... you can't even get a dentist if you aren't currently with one. Schools and housing lists are out of this world... I mean what on earth @Babyroobs

Where has anyone said it does

In fact the only people who ever seem to say that childfree people think or want that are not childfree people

Well they do and they don’t. It’s very complicated and basically a value judgement as to whether it’s capital or income.

https://medium.com/adviser/company-directors-and-universal-credit-4fc040b5fb22

I'm not single by choice. I don't live alone by choice. I do those things because I'm autistic and cannot tolerate another human in my living space because of the masking requirement that comes with having another human around.