To be irritated by this £100k a year whiner

[Viviennemary]

On Question Time tonight they were talking about subsidised childcare and the new benefits for younger children. Then a woman came on with a boo hoo sad face and said she wouldn't be getting it. So I think Fiona Bruce said because your income is £100k a year plus Then she said that it wasnt fair as there was only one wage. And their household only had one earner.

Well tough. Folk on just over £12k a year are paying tax and this cheeky woman thinks her child care should be subsidised. It made me mad.

The whole point, which has been made clear in this thread, is that someone earning £100k plus may be thousands of pounds worse off than someone earning £99k. Not whether higher earners should receive tax free childcare.

It is complete madness that someone earning £90k and working a three day week may be thousands of pounds better off than someone on £110k working a 5 day week. People, whatever they are earning, should be financially incentivised to work.

Take a senior GP returning to work after maternity level. She could go back 3-4 days a week, save on nursery costs and still receive tax-free childcare. Or she could go back 5 days a week, be over the threshold and have to pay her whole nursery bill herself. What do you think people are going to choose?

If she's the only wage earner, why can't her partner look after their children? I'm upset for the people who were offered child care and now find there is not enough provision. When something is offered as a universal benefit it's not fair that only the lucky can access it.

This has nothing to do with Count or Barqs previous discussion or indeed my response.
( although I do agree obviously businesses provide jobs,)
Bit of a derail there.

Neither of you seem able to read. I posted examples, referenced an article which itself referenced the report, and had a link where you could download it as a pdf.

I didn't intend to get sidetracked by big business, but businesses need customers, not subsidies. Why are we paying Nissan £800 million? Funding private oil & gas companies? It's just taking public money and gifting it to private companies.
https://www.corporate-welfare-watch.org.uk/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60114588

It should be based on household income, as many others have said on here. And why hasn’t that threshold gone up with inflation?

I think the woman on telly was being reasonable.

Errm - did you mean what you just wrote? Is that not what currently happens unless you have discovered an hitherto undiscovered 'money tree'. Having a child is a big hit for anyone - not more so for a high earner.

There is to be fair an argument that all benefits (which is what we are talking about) should be based on household income to be fair to single people.

All income should be taxed at the appropriate level on an individual basis as it is income a person has earned for themselves not as part of a couple.

In factt I think more money should go to subsidise children's care for people not on 6 figure salaries so that there is EQUAL OPPORTUNITY (for the child) .

Money should come from income and wealth tax - what wealth tax do you propose - on million pound houses ?

Was the £1040 before the funding was applied or after?

Even so, £510 a month for childcare is hardly a lot of money, is it? What does it work out to an hour? About 5 quid?

How much do you think you should pay?

Funnily enough I have just received a letter from HMRC. As our income for last year was £30265 we will get no tax credits. In previous years we were getting £35 a month as our income was lower. We did every bit of overtime offered. I reguarly did 10 hour days. My OH did a few months of 12 hours day. This meant we had to pay back the £35 we had been getting as our income was 'too high'.

The government thinks £30k before tax is enough for a one child family to live on. I think many high earners would be surprised that they would have to earn very little/rent/have disabled children in order to access most benefits.

We have the equivalent income of a 100k worker paying £3500 a month in childcare costs. If someone is on this salary and paying more than there is a case that anything above this should be subsidised.

@Ruby1957 Sorry?! Penalising children of the advantage will create equality? How have you justified that and where does that stop? We can't go around penalising those that have privilege and advantages to level the playing field!! I'm disabled, should everyone else be afflicted with my condition to balance things up?!!

Equality means enable ALL people to be the best that they are able to be, talking into account the hand they've been dealt.

This thread has literally pointed out that having a child is a bigger hit for a higher earner, as they lose over £6000 of subsidy and will have to earn £15k before tax to pay for that extra £6000. So yes, it does cost higher earners more!

I think the bigger issue is that in many parts of the country including where I am, the south east, 100k especially as one single income is not enough to own a small family home (3 bed semi) because mortgages are jumping, along with existing childcare and COL.

The reality is that I know single parent social housing households with far more disposable income than me and my partner who both work full time : because we pay a mortgage to afford a home an hour and a half away from where we work and we aren't lucky enough to have grandparents near.

I know we're relatively better off than some but you shouldn't assume people's financial wellbeing based on a salary alone.

This!!!

She will pay a lot more tax than other people too.

Private businesses don't create jobs, demand does. If they use the extra revenue from a tax subsidy to invest in technology ( driverless trains, self service tills etc) they're incentivised to cut jobs. As wages are a cost to businesses they're always going to be looking to cut jobs. It's customers and profit they want.

I don’t presently receive any funded hours as my child isn’t yet 2. In September I’ll have the 15 hours and so by my reckoning my total bill will reduce by up to £260pm, possibly less depending on whether I might have to pay for food on the day that will otherwise be ‘free’. But assuming my total bill reduces to £780 pm so too will my UC entitlement so I’ll still be paying more than the £100 that you very ignorantly claimed parents in receipt of UC all pay.

Please don’t insinuate that I take any issue with the amount that I pay for childcare. The ladies that care for my child while I work do an outstanding job and I agree that they are woefully underpaid for doing it. That isn’t my bugbear at all. My issue is people like you making sweeping statements on a public forum about parents that receive UC. Punching down is never a good look.

I read all of your articles.
The levelling up one doesn’t address the original question it highlights very real issues on how Govn spending is definitely skewed in favour of certain councils ..that’s got nothing to do with higher earning individuals being personally subsidised. Just has answered that one
The other article re businesses ( irrelevant to original post) highlights simply how stuff goes up in excess of wages. That’s wrong but has nothing to do with businesses not providing jobs.

I am happy to be a higher rate tax payer and would be equally happy to move to the Swedish model of higher taxes but better quality, universal services.

The thing is, that only works with a wide tax base i.e. everyone paying in their taxes, not just those on higher incomes.
In Sweden, someone on £60k equivalent would pay 37% in taxes, in the UK its just 27%. Someone on £100k would pay 42% overall in taxes, rather than 33% currently. These people are still eligible for all universal benefits such as parental support and subsidised child care.

But someone on £12k (who is working 3 days a week on minimum wage) would pay 25% taxes, whereas they currently don't pay NI or income tax in the UK. Thats a difference of £1k take home a month, and £750 take home a month. Someone on full time minimum wage of £18.8k would pay 27% taxes on their income in Sweden, rather than 11% in the UK.

Now personally I think the Swedish way is better, particularly because their benefits for disabled people, carers and the elderly are much more generous, but it's far different to what so many seem to imagine when they want to "tax the rich more".

@Ruby1957 and given that this is your opinion, not based on fact or observation and sets out to deliberately disadvantage children by decree of luck of birth to high earning parents, I'd say THAT is pretty nasty and hypocritical. I understand completely now why you got so sensitive about my previous comments. You absolutely fall into the ignorant and uneducated remit with your disgusting comment.

OMG, use your imagination, you obviously have a vested interest; it has everything to do with the argument in semantics we are having over what 'is' a subsidy. The economic and political structures, particularly under the Tories are rigged to benefit the very wealthy, that's the way it works now, all this faux disbelief and confusion - it's exhausting. We should all be worried about this.

Agree demand does need to be there
However, once the demand is recognised someone has to set up a business.

That business then creates jobs.

Technology is advancing and so some jobs( in some area as tech can’t do everything ) are lost , agree, that happened during the Industrial Revolution so nothing new there.
So new businesses set up if demand dictates and jobs in different areas are created .

Businesses create jobs.

So when you are in receipt of 2 year funding, you will be paying £260 a month, which is what? More or less equivalent to a monthly gas and electricity bill.

The fact that you are on here moaning about that suggests that you very much do begrudge paying it. And the ‘ladies’ at your nursery will be paid what your £260 contribution x 40 (or whatever) allows the owner of the nursery to pay, I’m sure.

It was brought in initially as a Family Allowance, a universal benefit for second and subsequent children. We didn’t get it for our first child until 1977, when it was changed to Child Benefit. It was introduced in the 1940s, and initially paid to mothers, most of whom then were dependent on men. It was hoped it would alleviate the worst child poverty.

We certainly could not afford to save ours, it helped with new shoes, school uniforms etc. Now we have grandchildren, their parents are in well paid jobs, and no longer qualify.

OP

The envy is showing and if it was not for people like our children who all paye at least 40% in direct tax plus NI etc, etc - the one-earner rule is unfair if you look at two adults, married/couple living same house can be earing less than the 100k each and get the child allowance

Was you aware, not sure re exact amount but 2 of our children earn over 150k each and I was staggered to learn that they do NOT get a tac allowance!!!! So people who have worked hard to get to where they are are funding those on the bottom of the ladder, those in the middle and the very wealthy who can at times avoid taxes to a great degree.

Demand creates jobs, private business steps in to meet demand (being owners of the means of production), workers are employed to service the customers and make profit for the business. Wages are a cost, it's in the interests of private businesses to cut costs ( ie jobs). If your tax revenue is funding that business to invest in technology or practices that requires less employees, then you're funding job cuts. If demand falls, jobs and wages are the first to be cut, not dividends.

@Garlicnaan and others this is based on a generous assumption:

"But your calculations are a bit misleading. With two kids in full time childcare she could also work, so their income would be a lot more than that. Otherwise why put two children in full time childcare?"

You are assuming that the previous poster is taking about a two parent household and that the man is the high earner. What about a single mother on £105k? Of course she'd have to put the children in full time childcare!