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?

It's a good idea and is already the case in a lot of other countries. But Mumsnet will hate it 😂

I don’t think a tax break would do much. Tax breaks give more to the wealthy who could have more kids if they wanted in most cases. I do agree that it’s better for countries to support and train their own populations so they’re not causing societal issues and brain drains in other countries.

I think we need more affordable childcare as it’s so difficult having more than one child in nursery. I have an 2.5 age gap which is often seen as ideal but not for nursery. Often the advice is to space out children and wait until one goes to school but that will lead to smaller families as some just don’t go back to having children. There are lots of factors at play that make it hard to address.

No, terrible idea.

No I don't someone's choice to have three children subsided. Better use would be after school care for all schools and all children

Having children is choice, no one needs to keep on breeding especially they can't afford it

Just the opposite. The world has too many people, so we need to incentivise people to have fewer children, not more.

However, I do think childcare should be tax deductible.

We don't need incentives to produce more people in the world, it's over populated enough

Sharing our the worlds population and encouraging migration and education so migrants can became productive members of the economy would be a far better practice.

Investing in mental and physical health services and adapting work so that currently unproductive members of society are able to access work and become financially beneficial to society.

More babies are not the answer

No. From a climate perspective, we shouldn't be incentivising people to have more children.

Funding childcare properly is the best way to do it rather than less tax which favours higher earners. It’s shocking that nursery can cost £2k+ which is more than many mortgages ! I suspect that it’s the biggest reason why people stop when they do. I understand why people would decide to use that £2k pm x 4 years (1 year of maternity) on other things.

You are also assuming that there will be an elderly population to support, we are just getting to the stage where people brought up on prepackaged and processed foods are reaching older age, the generation after them will be the sedentary office workers / WFH, general car owners it's highly likely the post war lifestyle towards gluttony, sloth and general consumerism, plastic in everything, poor air quality will get more people before they reach their advanced elderly years. Almost quite biblical really.

Re immigration, fertility rate is falling everywhere and it is falling faster than expected, only few countries are predicted to have tfr above 3 by 2050 such as Somalia and Afganistan.
I'm an immigrant myself so not against immigration but if you need to import 50% of your workforce, the existing social contract is under risk, I.e it is not given that the immigrants will be happy to pay high taxes to support pensioners in the UK while sending money abroad to support their own parents.

Surely If anything you should pay more?

Can you prove that all 3 of your children will be future net contributors across their whole life? If not then YABU.

I agree really. Our bloated wealthy generation will expect the NHS and the state to look after us through all our self-induced ailments and grumble about how “we’ve paid enough in” and vote to defend the state pension triple lock and the fact we have to sell our huge, half-empty mortgage-free homes to fund our elder care, whilst simultaneously complaining piously that the younger generations are self-entitled and shouldn’t complain about how expensive it is to get on the housing ladder.

I’m ashamed of us really - we have squandered the opportunity that peace and wealth have brought us.

Those of us who either have no children or are high earners (over£65k) are already paying for your DC. Why should your personal choices be valued over our financial contributions?

And what about the countries they’re coming from - what about their issues too with an increasingly elderly population and no younger people to replace them and pay taxes. Or should we just adopt the attitude of sod the other countries as long as the UK is ok?

I don’t agree with the OP’s suggestion but equally draining other countries of their workers is a very UK-centric point of view.

Many 3rd world countries are still having babies at well above population replacement level, so they are not going to run out of people. The world population needs to drop and once it's at a more sustainable level I believe it will stabilise of its own accord.

@bluemoonmilk there is going to have to be more climate related immigration, we aren't designed to live in 50+C heat, Qatar and India are reaching those temperatures readily, other extreme weather events are going to cause people to have to move North and South if they can. And those droughts and heat waves will likely kill off the elderly, obese and other vulnerability populations faster than anything else.

We are heading for a global population decline over the next 30 years and all nations are going to have to start thinking globally rather than domestically to prop up economys.

The last thing the World needs is large families!

No of course we cannot financially incentivise people to procreate, the population is exploding as it is. And the more kids you have the more resources you use.

Maybe decreased tax is not the answer but something needs to be done.

I agree that subsidised childcare is the best solution but I don't believe our government can manage such a big project. Unless they fix NHS and show us thay they know how to make big enterprise successful, I don't want them to start state supported free for all all-year-round nursery project.

I don't think it is fascist to provide economical support for bigger families.

I lived in a country with free childcare for all for a couple of years. Many women used the nursery and didn't work. Is it better? I am not sure.

Right now having kids is insanely expensive. Even after nursery stage is done. For example, swimming sport club costs us 260£ a month including fees for competitions for 2 children. And it's not even a luxury sport, it's something all families should be able to afford for their kids. It took us 8 years to decide that we can afford 3rd child and that's because we had a luxury of time. If I had my first at 35 it may have not been possible

No - most people only have 2 children because they cannot afford any more. We struggled to conceive (5 miscarriages) before finally having the 2 we’d hoped for - but we had always calculated that we would only have 2, as that was all we could afford.

This policy, in the first 10 years at least, could favour those who are, essentially, wealthy.

I agree with other PPs - childcare should simply be free for all, but private options available for those that chose to pay.

These countries still need tax payers and workers though, even those who have population growth rather than decline. Especially in a third world country - the UK and wealthy countries should absolutely play a part in supporting these countries’ economies to thrive in order to ensure better work opportunities, but not by draining the countries of their workforce to build up their countries. The UK shouldn’t get first dibs on their workers just to solve our problems.

YABVU. Having a larger family is a lifestyle choice. As a parent, it's your responsibility to work out if you have the means to support the family. If not, have less children.

I'm 69 and don't have children, OP. Just what would be the point of taxing me more?