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

Some of the comments on this thread make me wish I never had to see another human being again in my life. The awful suggestions that women be punished with less pension for not having children, the sheer fucking entitlement to women's reproductive labour. It's frightening that out there, somewhere outside my home, are real people who think I'm less of a person and don't deserve my pension rights as a working citizen, and these people don't wear t-shirts that announce their awful misogyny, they could be colleagues.

You might look up Decree 770 to see where attitudes like yours lead, including the outcome of unwanted children in care homes.

You're right, I don't have to live alone. I can live in one of the many flatshares available for disabled autistic people in rural Scotland. You know, to ease my burden on society.

I honestly think that some people have no concept whatsoever of how many disabled people either physically can't have children or have chosen not to because we look at our disabilities and we look at the human tornadoes that are our friends' and relatives' children and realise that we could never cope with raising a child.

Framing childfreeness and childlessness as cute choices instead of as the path of least resistance through a society that is not designed for us is the hallmark of able privilege.

These very same people would be the first to condemn with "why did you have kids when your own disabilities are so severe that you must have known that you couldn't raise them?" if we had kids that we then couldn't care for.

And you are right to pick up on that "burden" narrative: using it to describe the childfree is shitty anyway, but it is doubly shitty to use it once you realise how many disabled people decided against kids and already face that "burden" label just for existing as disabled. Basically, these people are happy for us to be branded "burden" twice, once for a disability we never asked for, and a second time for making a wise choice in the light of that disability.

Society won't collapse without children.

There are 8 billion people on the planet, most of whom are very young. Immigration shifts can make up any birth rate shortfalls.

These very same people would be the first to condemn with "why did you have kids when your own disabilities are so severe that you must have known that you couldn't raise them?" if we had kids that we then couldn't care for.

This

I'm pretty sure they are the same people who call childfree people selfish for not having children and women in abusive relationships selfish for having children (even though we know a lot of abuse doesn't start until women are pregnant/the baby arrives)

"Why did you have a baby with him" urm because society told me that I would be incredibly selfish and possibly financially penalised for not having a baby, that singleness was a choice and a poor one but this was the only partner interested at the time and being in a relationship was a more efficient use of resources so why are you having a go at me now?

That’s why I don’t resent the fact that people on the same income as us can afford a nicer lifestyle at all, I have lovely friends without children who are always off on weekends away etc and I’m very happy for them. The last thing I would want is them to not have those joys as required to give us money, absolutely not. What I am saying is that I think families should be allowed to earn extra tax free money to support their children, if a single person gets to earn 12.5k a year without being taxed in acknowledgement they are a person and need to eat etc then then why are parents not allowed to work extra so they can earn that same tax free amount on behalf of their child, who is also a person and also needs to eat?

The tax disregard every adult individual is entitled to in this country is worth £208 a month reduction in tax which that person has to pay. Child benefit is much less and much less so for 2nd children. More and more families who are struggling are not even entitled to child benefit

You want to pay less in tax but keep saying that you don't want anyone else to have to pay more in tax. How is this idea funded?

It’s about a basic justice of acknowledging children as people in the tax system, we don’t argue the ‘cost’ as a reason for denying fairness in most other situations?
To be honest however I don’t think it would significantly reduce the tax revenue of the country, a huge portion of parents currently claiming UC will be happily free of the system now that they are actually being allowed to keep more of the money they have earned to support their family’s Parents will no longer be so be under such a disincentive to go and earn extra money and think it also worth while to upskill this increasing the country’s productivity. They will also be spending this extra 2.5k in the economy so paying VAT etc. I personally think putting this fairness into the tax system is more important than many things our taxes are currently spent on. I also think there should be equal entitlement for such allowances for all families/couples supporting dependant members unable to work. I absolutely don’t believe in anyone else’s taxes being put up to pay for this.

So more money for their kids. you do realise that’s the same thing.

People with kids take more out of the system than people without kids.

Yet you want them to pay less into the system that they get more benefits from than people who don’t have kids and people who don’t have kids will have to stump up the bills.

If you make a choice to have kids, pay for them.

I’m not even asking for anyone else’s money, just they we could just keep a little more of our own while raising children - it’s 2.5k a year.

7.21m families receive child benefit for 12.52million children (official 2020 figures). Even if all these are 20% tax payers that's 2.5k/year/child. Some will be 40% taxpayers and would receive 5k/year/child but I will ignore this for now.

The lost tax revenue to the government is (12.52m x 2.5k) = £31.3billion.

Where do you propose the government makes £31.3bn of cuts each year to pay for your idea? Or perhaps they should raise income tax (so you would be asking for someone else's money). HMRC figures show 1% on basic rate tax raises £5.5bn, and 1% on higher rate raises £1.3bn so putting basic rate tax up to 24% and higher rate up to 47% would cover it.

We don’t resent paying for children to go to school.

We resent people like you who are suggesting that you ought to have more disposable income and pay less tax than those of us without kids because you made the choice to have kids.

We resent the fact that we’re constantly being told to do more and get less out and be happy with that.

Why should parents pay less in tax simply on the basis of them having kids regardless of their income than people who didn’t have kids?

It’s not a matter of resenting paying for schools and essential services. That’s part of living in a society. However, when the childfree take less out of the system- we use the NHS less as we don’t have kids, we don’t take maternity leave, we often work more, we are entitled to less in benefits and don’t claim child benefit. We’re being told to put more into a system that we get less out of than the people who take more out of the system would!

Free education was introduced so as to be a ‘benefit’ to the child, not the parent. It was something you were fully entitled to just as much as any individual child today so why begrudge the fact kids are entitled to free education?
Same with parks etc, did you not benefit from being able to access a local park as a child. None of these things were introduced as a ‘favour to parents’ in your eyes kids seem not to be citizens but merely pets

Your version of fairness is rather interesting.

Quit twisting your argument to be about something it wasn’t.

No one is begrudging those services being available and paying in to make them available and you know it.

I do, however, begrudge paying more in tax than parents (regardless of income) because parents under your proposed “fair” system would be getting extra tax allowances on top of everything else that is taken out.

Essentially you want a system where people with kids pay less in but take more out. And you think this is fair.

So where do you propose the government makes up for the shortfall in tax? No doubt increase the tax that the childfree pay.

We wouldn’t have more disposable income than you?? It costs a hell of a lot more than 2.5k a year to raise a child so honestly you don’t need to worry, you would still get to enjoy the financial benefits of being child free over parents earning exactly the same as you.

Why are adults given a tax allowance that acknowledges the basic costs of needing to eat and have a roof over there head?

In no way is this the reason for the personal tax allowance. It's main two purposes are:

1. To take very low earners out of the tax system altogether, as the cost of collecting it outweighs the revenue that would be collected.
2. It is the primary factor in creating a progressive tax system (where higher earners pay a higher rate of tax). These figures show basic rate taxpayers salary/effective tax rate (for basic rate taxpayers, excluding NI) £12,500/0% - £16,000/4.3% - £20,000/7.4% - £25,000/9.9% - £30,000/11.6% £35,000/12.8% - £40,000/13.7%

Incidentally, all children are already entitled to the £12,570 tax allowance, but it is only applicable to money they earn themselves.

except we’d have to subsidise the shortfall in tax since parents won’t be paying it. the tax still has to come from somewhere. Unless you’re happy for the child benefit to be cut or do you still want to receive that on top of the extra tax allowances?

You made the choice to have children. No, they’re not pets but they’re still a goddamn choice. So you pay for them and stop expecting other people to subsidise your choices.

Incentivising dramatically financially unequal relationships is not in our best interest as a society or as taxpayers.

It reduces our tax take, encourages more dads to opt out of parenting and more mums to opt out of working.

This then makes a personal choice a taxpayer issue, given that 43% of marriages end in divorce, and the mum has no recent work history and far too frequently ends up in low income work and reliant on further taxpayer funding. Or the mum - along with the kids - is trapped in a grim marriage due to the massive financial impact of separation. Very 1950s and retro-chic, but not great for anyone at all.

With OP's fantastic new tax system, DH and I would be over £11,000 per year better off (2 x DC, 45% tax rate).

We really don't need the money and would probably spend it on another holiday or maybe new cars.

We would of course be grateful to those people without children. Especially those who desperately wanted them but were sadly unable to become parents, and even more so if they are now struggling with their day-to-day living expenses to fund our tax cut.

It sounds great, doesn't it...

It's not the daftest idea I've ever heard. However, as the public purse can't afford a sizable drop in income this would have to be done instead of loads some of the stuff we get now - like child benefit, tax free childcare etc. And even then it would likely need a hike in tax rates to pay for it....

I get where you're coming from but ultimately it means that child free tax payers are subsiding other people's children. That doesn't seem fair either. Saying that as a parent who would have welcomed the extra income, but we already had child benefit. don't see how it is fair to those who don't have children to be given even more?

Which is massively outweighed by the financial penalty of being disabled enough to decide that having kids was an unachievable option. A chunk of that penalty being because I live alone so that I don't have to mask in my own home, but also penalties related to adaptive equipment being stupidly expensive and being on lifelong medication.

Unlike you choosing to have children, I didn't get a choice about being disabled.

Jeez, the more you post the more unhinged your posts get.

You had kids, you pay for them.

Land Value Tax could replace income tax and make a lot of these arguments go away by hitting those with huge inherited estates hardest, making the foreign housing owners pay tax on the land they own here, and leaving what you earn by your own efforts untouched.