To think women with 3+ kids should pay less taxes

[WhatTodoALL]

All parties will have to deal with the increasing number of old people and low fertility rate. They use this fact to justify big numbers of net migration. I was wondering if we as a country should actively provide economical benefits for women to have more than one child? In some countries like Singapore there are a lot of economic incentives to have more than 2 kids. I have 3 kids myself and I don't know anyone in my friendship group who would have more than 2. In fact, most don't want to have even one child citing economical reasons.

AIBU?

Social engineering often has unintended consequences.

There will be some bad years with a dominant elderly high needs population but at some point there will be a natural adjustment. Encouraging people to breed more is irresponsible.

Perhaps when they are very young, but most mothers of three children where at least 2 are school age will be working part time at least. (I am full time with three under four, but I'm unusual.)
I suppose the logic is that women with three or more kids will find it more difficult to work and/or hold down longer hours and better paid jobs, but are benefitting the economy in other ways, and so this is a way of "topping up" their wages. I think there are way better ways of doing it though.

Quite the opposite, the more children you have the more services you use that are tax payer funded, the more tax you should contribute. I think you meant low birth rates, not fertility.

No....People who have several kids are using more resources. Its like that woman from 22 kids and counting and people saying 'but she's not on benefits'.....those 22 kids still have to go to school and be educated, still get dental services and health care.
We're presuming these kids will grow up and pay tax. They might be lazy or provide nothing to society and just be influencers. We don't know. But the stress on the system will be worse when they are old and the next generation is having to take care of these old people.

What about water and food and housing? Yu can't create more water than the world has and one day there won't be enough. There's only so much land to grow crops, not all places with land have the right soil or climate.

People shouldn't be allowed more than 2 in my eyes. It's selfish.

Most mothers are still having 2.5 kids, the big issue is unplanned childlessness, with many more people not having kids at all - around 80% of childless people would have wanted kids.
This is just wrong. Having more than 2 is very much a minority choice. Also, I don't think your figure of 80% childless people wanting kids is accurate at all. The vast majority of childless people did not want children.

I think it’s broadly been proven that these kinds of incentives don’t work.

Having lots of children doesn’t seem to appeal to most women nowadays, probably because they don’t want the enormous domestic responsibility vs also have a life themselves.

Unfortunately it won't work , many countries tried to introduce financial incentives but it makes very little difference compared to the real cost of raising a child (20 hours a week = 50% of your salary + direct costs like food, clothes, clubs, extra room etc) . A woman with no kids and a good job will be 0.5-1 mln better off in long term than a woman with 3 kids and the same job and probably will get a better pension, less health problems etc. I think no government will ever pay anything close to this number, especially as we already have an aging society with huge expenses.

It quite literally is a bad thing.

We cannot afford to support our elderly population if people aren’t having kids at replacement level or above.

Your starting point is that immigration is bad. I don’t agree. Birth rates in the global west are falling, that means populations can move around from overcrowded countries to come here. That’s fine. Overall global population needs to fall.

Boosting the birth rate is only desirable if you want to clamp down on immigration but can't because you need the immigrants for your workforce.

Therefore the extra babies generated by such an initiative would be destined for low pay low status jobs that currently recruit heavily from other countries.

We can if we fill the workforce gaps with immigrants who are hsppy to come here and very willing to work hard and pay lots of taxes.

Environmentally speaking we need to breed less not more.

We certainly will need a strategy for the aging population but I’m not convinced more people is it.

In the (European) country I come from, you have “large family” status if you have 3+ children, with additional benefits from 5+. This is not only reflected on taxes (minimally) but on administration fees, cost of extra-curriculars (as most are state-run), public transport eg train fares, and a long list of etc. There is no such thing as child benefit though, for anyone. 3+ children gets you a 50% discount on those state fees whilst 5+ children makes it free of charge. So for example in gymnastics / music / ballet schools, children from a family with 5 siblings don’t pay anything to attend.

Childcare is also state-run and funded from the age of 4 months, although the newly improved parental leave system means most families can stay at home with the baby at least until the 8-9 month mark. It cannot be solely the mother though (unless a single parent).

Edit to add - the birth rate is still falling though. One of the fastest dropping rates in Europe.

No. The world is over populated enough as it is. What we need is a slowly declining birth rate across the globe. Yes this will create difficulties for a few generations as we have more old than young people. But after a few generations it will even out. Otherwise the human race becomes a huge pyramid scheme.

Very right wing governments like France?

The UK is the only government in the G20 where someone supporting 2/3/4/5 people on a single income pays exactly the same tax as someone with no dependents (apart from the transferable marriage allowance which is very limited).

You may feel that this is obviously correct, and that having children is a purely personal decision which should no more concern the taxman than any other expensive hobby. But the other approach is not an extremist position: it's the norm.

I think it pretty crazy as a nation to encourage large-scale immigration from other counties vs actually just making it more affordable for people to have families.

I’m not averse to immigration, but it’s a pretty depressing outlook for the UK to promote immigration from third world countries over helping our own people to flourish.

Or more scroungers?

The Nazis did that.

You get healthcare, education, school meals, child benefit. Anyone with 3+ kids is already taking out more than they are putting in. Yes, we will need more migration as time goes on to replace an aging population. There are plenty of people who want to come.

I'm not in favour of the ponzi scheme approach, and I do think that a gradually declining population is generally desirable.

But why do you think that "after a few generations it will even out?" The maths doesn't give you that at all. It can only be based on a pure guess that people will suddenly start having 2.1 children again for some reason.

Would you like a 4 bed house as well?

You get healthcare, education, school meals, child benefit.
Well plenty of parents don't get school meals or child benefit at all. And everyone gets healthcare, and if you were brought up in Britain everyone got education. Not sure OP is really rolling in all these benefits at all.

Every KS1 child in state school gets free school meals. regardless of parents' income. Everyone gets healthcare and education, and for her, that everyone includes 3 dependents.

It’s interesting that it is not ONLY low birth rate, it’s the wider generational spacing - so if my great gran had 2 kids average maternal age 25, then those kids had their own 2 kids average maternal age 25, then 50 years or so after great gran got married there are 8 great grandkids and two working age grandchildren.

Whereas nowadays you might have your first kid age 35 and your second aged 40. And ditto as the generations progress.

So maybe you want to support YOUNG people to be financially able to afford kids rather than waiting until they can afford it age 40, as then a woman aged 80 has maybe only 4 young grandkids and 2 adult children, as opposed to being a great gran with 8 great-grandchildren, 4 adult grandkids and two adult kids.

I have 4 kids - my choice, my responsibility. My DH and I work full time and received no tax credits but that’s fair enough because, and I can’t stress this enough, I chose to have 4 wonderful children and I don’t expect others to pick up the tab.