Avoiding the childcare trap

[Difficultquestionplz]

hi! I know there are a lot of high earners in this group so maybe other mums can help me. I am caught up in the 100k childcare trap.
back in the days when my salary was around the 100k mark, I was able to top up the pension, but that was before my child was born. Now my child has turned 3 and was hoping to finally get a little relief but it looks like it’s not the case…
currently my salary is higher, almost exclusively due to sales commissions and I am going to finish the fiscal at 260k. My husband is livid that he loses on benefits because of my salary and I am actually wondering if there is anything I could do in terms of investments that can be deducted that could bring me below the threshold.
I am not using any financial advisor because honestly when I looked into it they wanted to take 3% management fee just to manage the easy bits (pension, isas) and it obviously compounds.

thank you for helping
(please be kind, I don’t come from money, my job is paying well now but also highly at risk due to performance management or constant layoffs mixed with the joy of nepotism, unconscious bias/ blatant sexism of a male dominated environment)

OP, if you started a thread saying that you think it should be based on family income, you would have got a lot more people agreeing with you.

Of course they are, anyone getting benefits is being subsidised, it doesnt matter how much tax you pay, it's money you're not entitled to, it's not yours. Don't act like shes some kind of hero, if benefits mean that much to her, she can get a lower paying job and there will be thousands of people waiting to jump into her role, but she won't because she likes the money she gets from her role, she just thinks she should be entitled to more of it.

People are obsessed with money! Yes we need it to get by but I can’t help but feel that by chasing the next penny, wanting bigger houses, more expensive cars and holidays and so on we are forgetting to actually live.

So he was indeed claiming them even though household income was high?

You aren’t being subsidised if you’re consistently putting in significantly more than you take out. That’s absurd.

Entitled to more of what she earns? Amazing.

No. Try again. He cannot claim because of his spouses earnings.

I disagree, tax money is not yours, she's not generously handing over money to the tax man out of free choice. The job pays the wage, a percentage of which goes to the government, that is not her money. Anything you take out of the system is you being subsidised. What about people who don't have children, should they be getting money back too seeing as they generally take far less from the system?

No I was explaining to you what a progressive tax system+ a social welfare state does.

Between my husband and I we pay £17000 a month in tax. Plus national insurance. Only in the world of mumsnet would you call someone entitled for thinking the money they earn is theirs pre tax. And that how that money is taxed is to some extent up to the person who earns it.

It’s not about getting money back. It’s about double taxation as I already said. And also the fact that some get it and some don’t. Why do people who contribute less get to actually take whereas those earn a high amount just give less? Even if it’s just the option to pay for childcare pre taxation.

No, again, you were explaining what you think it does.

I disagree, tax money is not yours, she's not generously handing over money to the tax man

exactly

No - what it does.
Taxing the rich at a higher proportional rate than the poorer, and providing cash benefits to those with lower incomes is a means of redistributing income from wealthier people to those less well off. This is a fact whether you chose to agree with it or not.It doesn’t mean that the system necessarily works well as a whole or that there aren’t still major structural inequalities in society.

You’re shifting constantly. Funding poor people to the benefit of the wealthy is not redistribution of wealth. It’s maintaining the status quo. All this does is ensure that things stay the same as they always have been.

I’m really not shifting at all, you seem to be misunderstanding my posts. I’ve said the same thing from the start.
taxation raises money for public services used by all. A progressive tax system + social welfare benefits redistributes income from those more well off to those less well off to reduce income inequality. This is just how it works.

If I have 6 pizza slices and another person has two pizza slices , we have a difference of 4 pizza slices, if the government then takes 2.5 slices off me and half a slice off the other person, spends 2 slices on public services which we both use and gives the other person back a full slice in social welfare benefits, they now have 2.5 slices and I have 3.5 slices. I have less pizza (income) and they have more and there’s a difference of one slice between us.

Only on mumsnet? No, it's literally how it works and why you're moaning. Your pre tax salary is not what you're paid, it is not yours, its the governments. Maybe salaries should start being advertised as post tax so people dont have this sense of entitlement. Its your employer who pays it ultimately. You're not being double taxed anymore than anyone else is. And I notice you didn't answer my question about people who don't have children, who are subsidising those that do, should they be entitled to money back?

For an individual yes, but he’s not simply a single individual is he…. I never normally “shout” but I think it’s called for here “YOU ARE MARRIED!”

You don’t seem to grasp the real nature of marriage… It’s much much more than just a romantic gesture that is cerebrated with a fancy wedding. Fundamentally it’s a legal and financial partnership. You seem reluctant to recognise this.

Or you’re misunderstanding mine. You seem to think the objective of the system is redistribution. It’s not. It’s about keeping the system exactly as it is but ensuring the working class think they’re getting a slice of pizza. What’s really happening is this.

I have a pizza from Rome.
You have a pizza from Lidl. They took a piece of your pizza and threw it away and gave it back to you. They took 1/3 of my pizza, which incidentally is extra large and I can’t eat it all, used 5/6 of the bit they took to make some roads and gave you a slither to make you think you’ve got fancy pizza.

But he tried and was turned down, which is why he's livid?

No. It’s literally mine. My income. Which is why I decide which elements of it become taxable. It’s why we overpay into our pension. Purchase tax free benefits. And take transferable share options. There are endless ways to reduce what you expose to tax.

No. He did not.

lol ok well I’m not going to disagree with you that the government is shit at managing money.

Only they aren’t. They are managing it perfectly in the context of the objective.

Look even in your own example the net result is that I now have a Ildi pizza + a sliver of your Rome pizza that has been taken from you and given to me. That’s redistribution of income. Is it enough? No. Does it passify the masses for the purposes of maintaining the status quo? Possibly? Does it mean we live in an equal society? No. But does it redistribute some income? Yes.

Absolutely, but the OP doesn’t seem to agree with, or even recognise the concept of, marital income and finances. She seems fixated on benefits being applied to an individual regardless of their marital status.

She has stated she finds hard to even conceive that a married couple would pool resources, even though many, and perhaps
most, do exactly that.

I think the OP needs a paradigm shift in terms of her understanding what a marriage is institutionally and legally, because it seems to be a massive blind spot in her understanding of what marriage actually entails, at least in the UK.