High Income single families losing Child benefit

[ReturnoftheMe]

Hi there - I know this has been talked about extensively over the years, but I wondered if anyone has been following the topic and discussions around it in parliament for the future? Are there any changes to come for the next budget?

I am a single mother with no input from my 2 kids father. I live in London work full time and currently cannot afford to put my 2 year old in nursery as fees are too high, and I am not eligible for any help (fees are 2k + a month in my area). Luckily my mother has stepped in, but without her I'd have to claim benefits and not work, or I'd have to dial down my ambitions and go for a part time job which puts me at a disadvantage in my work place.
This year I will gratefully receive a bonus that just about puts me at the point of not being eligible at all for any Child Benefit down to the penny. This really bothers me because all the families I know all receive it still. Some really high earning self employed couples who manage to complete tax returns that keep them eligible and even my own brother, both him and his wife earn 50k and 46k respectively and they still get CB for their two boys.

When is this going to change in order to be fair for single mothers like myself? I cannot afford nursery and I also do not get any child benefit. Something is incredibly wrong here.

Am I being unreasonable to feel as though this is unfair to single mothers?

The fact others are paid a salary that is too low, doesn't mean a salary that is adequate should be badged as great riches. The UK is a low pay economy sadly, we have had such a long period of wage freezes that those at the bottom are genuinely underpaid, those in the middle are about adequate and obviously anyone at the top is doing OK. Whereas what we want to see is those at the bottom paid enough, and the rest do better than that.

That's complicated and expensive to administer.

The CTax discount is quite simple as it is not income related.

The thing you can.do.is Chanel an extra £5k into your pension then you could claim some CB. It's up to you to manage.

@BettyBakesCakes obviously there will be some exceptions.

I hope you get some kind of benefits at least to help (carer’s allowance, PIP etc.) I know they don’t replace a salary though.

Not always. Sometimes it's due to ill health and childcare is still needed

@SutWytTi
But HMRC already have to assess individual income to assess whether you are over the £60k threshold (and for tax purposes in general). If you simply doubled the thresholds for single parent families and asked for proof of entitlement to the single person council tax reduction (for example) I don’t see that it would be much more complex than the current system. You can log on to your personal tax account and HMRC will tell you in almost real time what they think your taxable income is.

Assessing household income would be a bit more complex and I think there’s less of an argument for (say) a SAHM and someone earning £70k being entitled to child benefit because the SAHM could generally work if they wanted to and having a SAHM generally saves on childcare etc. Being from a single parent family does (in general) negatively affect children - and I say that as a single parent myself- probably because single parents are time and money poor so resources are stretched thinner and sometimes due to trauma related to breakdown of the relationship with the child’s other parent or not seeing that parent etc. The benefits system could specifically address that disadvantage given that child benefit is supposed to benefit children but it’s doing the opposite.

I have been raging about this for years. It's a fully divide and conquer policy. I recall raising it at the time on here as completely unfair and had a range of responses similar to you about count yourself lucky etc. if you earn that much you shouldn't need it.
Fine, but now the government are coming after those lower earners too and decimating the safety net they will want us to all stand up and be counted, but when we asked their for help they said no, so I'll take my salary that they think is huge and completely leave them all to it. And that is exactly what the government wanted. A split of people who may have banded together and now won't.

Id look at what you can do, maybe deferring some bonus to next year may help, I've lost all mine now, but I am very lucky as my DD is 50/50 with me and my ex and he was allowed to claim it once I couldn't.

You create a new admin task of verifyng eligibility. You create a new type of fraud that has to be investigated. You create a new change of circs that has to be administered.

It is a lot to administer, really, which costs a lot.

Totally agree it is divide and conquer, and I opposed it too for this reason.

The chip chip chip away of the welfare state puts all but the very wealthy at risk.

Agreed. As someone on the left and a supporter of the welfare state, I cringe when I see people trot out tropes about how posters discussing these issues should think themselves lucky they're not poor, or similar. Utterly idiotic.

You do realise you will get 15 free hours in September and 30 after Easter plus tax free childcare.

I don't understand why they can't add a box on the self assessment form to select that you are a single adult person household and then your threshold is higher.

That's not more expensive to admisinister. It's self assessment. Am I missing something?

I think what some posters are not recognising is that this was a universal payment for everyone before the tories introduced the limits in 2013!

Also the government were quite happy to assess my entitlement to tax credits on a household income so there is a clear disparity here.

Along with fiscal drag, this is seriously making me consider dropping some hours at work even though I really need to be earning more.

I'm sure I'm repeating what others have said but here's my thoughts.
I have no issue with a cap on the benefit but it should be done on total household income. Seems incredibly unfair that my neighbours bring in nearly 99k and keep theirs and we don't because my husband is on a decent salary.
I also think it's unfair that twins don't hoth get classed as first babies but thats a separate issue!

I do agree with you OP. It's weird that you won't be eligible with your bonus, yet DP and I jointly earning much more are, because it's in my name and my personal income is below the threshold.
As a pp said, weird how other benefits are assessed on household income, yet this one is personal.

I’m from the south east and most aren’t making that money

I agree with you OP. I'm a lone parent, no other parent alive, and so it annoys me immensely that if I work hard, get promoted and get paid more money I am penalised in comparison to other households with the same income, in terms of losing child benefits and the tax advantages of having two tax allowances. It's not fair.

It doesn't matter who claims the child benefit, if either partner are over the threshold you are not eligible to receive Child benefit.

It's a ridiculously unfair system for single parents and also families with one higher earner and one low earner.

do THIS!

Also apply for Child Maintenance - even if small it will help.

It took 2 to tango!

Hi,

Could you ask HR to not get the bonus?

Visit a good accountant op x

What could be done to this unfair "system" to be changed? What's the legislative/Parliament way ?

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/652076

Op - just pay the bonus into a pension this year and future years assuming you can afford to
live on 50k. You may be very thankful when you retire! If you work out what each £1 into your pension costs you from your pocket (taking into account tax, Ni and the loss of Cb) it’s worth doing it to get 10k into your pension.

Remember charity contributions can be popped onto your tax return. Keep your evidence. Many other bits can be offset too. The gov uk tax website is a good read 😂.