AIBU to hope the £100k cliff edge for funded nursery hours is removed?

[horchatatresleches]

News is that the education secretary is looking at nursery funding but it’s unclear if it’s to reduce or increase the support available at either the upper or lower thresholds. AIBU to hope that the harsh cliff edge which stops all nursery funding at £100k is removed or least replaced with something tapered so that people aren’t losing money for being marginally above the threshold?

Well aren’t you lovely!

people earning that amount are the people paying for others to have benefits.

They wouldn’t be if they got the tax they pay back to pay for childcare.

The childcare should at least be tax deductible! How can they be charging people out of post tax income. So that would be a compromise. You use your top slice income on the childcare and then get taxed after that.

Won’t somebody actually think of the best way to get people earning high incomes to keep going and pay more taxes rather than reducing their income to get below arbitrary thresholds. But then I suppose we don’t need more doctors or dentist appointments, or growth…

This is what people don’t understand.

why should people work and not get the benefits of their work but pay for others to get their benefits and support. The working people at this rate pay for the country to run.

The working people at this rate pay for the country to run.

You keep saying this but they wouldn’t if they got free childcare, they’d be costing the country money.

But what if we live in an expensive part of the country? With a few children in certain areas and the tax paid, 100k is more like 30-40k in other areas once you account for the fact you get no help with nursery etc.
I’d welcome it. I’d actually welcome free childcare for all working parents. It’s the best route for the economy.

If she gives up work while her children are in nursery she is unlikely to be able to walk straight back into a similar role 5 years later.

The impact on lifetime tax paid will be huge.

Also based on your reasoning, we might as well remove benefits from almost all lower earners and just insist they work more instead as currently by your definition they offer no benefit to society.

I don’t think anyone should be paid so little that they need benefits. I object strongly to employers being subsidised in this way.

These threads always go the same way sadly.

Just ends up an argument between high earners (who aren’t rich FFS) and low income families who rely on the benefits being paid for by the high earners. Without the high earners, the benefits wouldn’t exist.

it’s only the super rich who we can actually call rich.

This is exactly the sort of case that needs to be at the forefront of the discussion. It is utterly outrageous that this situation has come into being.

Maybe the solution is for those of us who want the cliff edge abolished to be given priority for NHS appointments. And those who want the policy to continue can be sent to the back of the queue, so it's them who are paying the price of their stupidity.

I haven’t criticised anyone relying on benefits and the only other change I’ve suggested to policy other than 100k cliff edge is to say that I think the nursery education should also be available to those children who’s parents don’t meet the lower end of the earning threshold so all pre-school age children have access to nursery education. I’m not right wing at all. The counties I look up to most politically are the Scandinavian nations, where nursery is capped for all families and that’s my suggestion here.

I also resent being described as rich. We are a couple who have zero family money or help, and have had one year where my husband’s salary has slightly tipped over the £100k threshold, which is the year I’ve been mostly earning very little on SMP until that ran out too. I care about NHS and education funding too, but I wonder if you’ve read the posts from the perspective of doctors who this policy affects. No GP with young children works more than three days a week at my surgery. Another poster was a surgeon who would pick up extra hours but can’t afford to be worse off from losing the childcare hours that would cause so doesn’t. The loss of productivity, and people salary sacrificing tax free into pensions, reducing hours and not going for promotions affects tax take, which means there’s less money the treasury can collect from higher earners.

If that’s to me (?) then it would only be a bit more as it would be tapered. If they worked and kept working, tax back to the economy would be more and worth it. Currently high earners (but not rich) are keeping under the threshold deliberately to ensure they get access to the childcare. So it’s worse at the moment.

people earning 100k should be able to access some support that they are working for!

someone up thread said that it’s not fair loopholes can be flouted for high earners to get benefits, but not for lower earners. But I think the argument is true that it’s unfair higher earners can’t access the same support - what’s the point in working/studying etc to get good jobs. Often it takes years of study and other sacrifices to get to that point.

I think everyone should be entitled to state support but on household income and then a tapered approach rather than all or nothing. Otherwise people just won’t work!! Which is what happens unfortunately and then there’s not enough money to go around.

Actually, they most likely would be. Someone on 100k pays approx £30k in tax and NI. If we “give” them back £10k’s worth of childcare support, they are still contributing far more than most people. And once you go above £100k, the tax take rises quickly. So someone on £120k, pays over £40k in tax and NI.

Someone up thread said that it’s not fair loopholes can be flouted for high earners to get benefits, but not for lower earners.

I didn't see the post, but lower earners absolutely can and do engage in activity to make sure they stay below thresholds. UC is calculated based on net rather than gross earnings, for example, so the option of paying more into one's pension is there just the same as it is for someone wanting to avoid the 100k cliff edge.

Exactly we live in what Mumsnet considers a relatively cheap area, our mortgage is nearly £2k for bog standard 3 bed terrace house. Add on £2k of nursery and £400 of wrap around costs and that leaves £1100 of a £100k salary every month for all other bills, council tax, food, transport, gas and electric and water. It is most definitely NOT rich.

I rest my other case about punishing 'the rich' and not looking at the issue beyond the headline £100k.

I think if it were a sort of universal state education starting at 9 months, for all, there would quickly be even more red tape and curriculum and more uniformity across nurseries. I wonder what it would do to childminders and Nannies - out of business for good. There are vacancies in a lot of state primaries so some buildings can be repurposed. And wrap around care would have to be chargeable at a reasonable rate too. And then open in the school holidays too, also chargeable.

I think the fact that income not being the same as being rich is lost in these discussions. I have a friend from huge family wealth. University fully paid for, her parents gave her £750,000 to buy a house, and I know they’ve transferred at least one BTL property to her as well. I don’t resent that, and I’d do the same for my children if I could, but I really strongly disagree with being being lumped into the same bracket because one year that might never happen again my partner’s income was slightly over £100k (in a year I spent mostly on SMP so our average household income is probably around or just over two people earning the average income). The discussions of the cliff edge aren’t higher earners wanting sympathy, but a critical look about who this policy works for.

It would be a massive upfront cost but I think better to spend there than on benefits to their parents as it isn’t working for children. The places could also offer advice for back to work stuff. I do remember some of these kind of nurseries being trialled in London in the Surestart era in London in deprived areas, eg middle of a huge council tax estate.

PEOPLE EARNING OVER £100K WILL STILL PAY FOR THEIR CHILDCARE IF THE SYSTEM IS CHANGED.

THEY WILL CONTINUE TO SHOULDER THE BURDEN OF EVERYONE ELSE'S CHILDCARE CARE.

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE WILL BE THE METHOD OF PAYMENT AND ALLOWING THEM TO EARN MORE THUS PAYING MORE TAX.

THE NET RESULT SHOULD BE THAT EVERYONE IS BETTER OFF AND KEY SERVICES LIKE THE NHS CAN GET THE SKILLED STAFF THEY TO WORK MORE HOURS WHICH THEY DESPARATELY NEED.

Its not giving people earning £100k something new for free. They will ultimately be the ones who still pay for it, but the system will be free of barriers which are restricting people in various scenarios from working.

This isn't dissimilar to issues with benefits at the other end of the scale, where its becoming increasingly the case that going from benefits to employment isn't worthwhile for some.

These issues are massively impacting productivity.

Well we all pay for services we don’t use don’t we? Childless people pay taxes that fund education, disabled people pay taxes for facilities they can’t access, those who find their own retirement pay for the feckless and or impoverished’s care, pacifists pay for armed forces, those who would abolish the monarchy pay towards the royal family, and on and on. It’s how a society works. We all pay in and we set up a scaffolding to live within.

I don’t think a salary of £100,000 is “rich” in the context you describe and I’m not sure anyone does.

Yes and there’s always an element of self righteousness and victim hood about it.The idea seems to be that the person paying £40k in tax is somehow being selfish and unfair to the person receiving £40k in benefits and therefore need to be punished or held back in some way (along with their children). It reminds me of children being called a swot and bullied at school for working hard. It’s a truely odd and damaging worldview. It can’t continue.

I think what lost in these conversations is the idea of 'free' childcare.

There is no free childcare.

Childcare is always paid for by someone.

Getting rid of the cap, those on over a £100k would still pay for more than their own child's care. It's just that they wouldnt be penalised in a way that harmed themselves and everyone else in the process.