Tories campaigning to remove the childcare maximum income threshold

[FlakyPastries]

Kemi Badenoch has announced that the Tories want to remove the upper income threshold on childcare.

This means all working families will be able to claim it, including those earning over £100k.

Do you agree with this policy?

My baby’s nursery charges £30,000 and the free hours and tax free childcare is worth around £15,000 - so this is quite a significant benefit for those currently unable to claim.

There are two tax policies that if withdrawn would boost the tax take, I.e. are actively inhibiting tax being taken:

stamp duty on share purchases, and;
the personal allowance withdrawal.

If we give everyone a personal allowance, these people will be happier AND the tax take will be boosted as fewer people will take actions to avoid paying tax (working part time, putting money into pensions etc). Will these policies be removed? Probably not, because the likes of @Carr0tT0p would whine about it not being fair that people earn more than them, and removing the stamp duty on shares will help the ‘big bad banks’ even though doing so would make UK finance more competitive and would therefore boost tax take.

💯

It’s pervasive though. And too many depend on the state so we keep targeting higher earners, they change behaviour or opt out and there’s generally less.

Its like the classic friends at the pub scenario where the 10 friends go for beer, the first 4 pay nothing, the fifth pays £1, six pays, £3, seven pays £7, 8 pays £12, 9 pays £18 and 10 pays £59. But they then decide that its not fair that man 10 has more money, so they get his contribution, take his beer off him and punch him in the face.
Honestly the spite and unpleasantness towards the net contributors is disgusting.

I'd happily lose our childcare funding at £100,000 if the tax rate wasn't so brutal, if the it were say just 40% and no loss of personal allowance. But its the triple whammy isn't it? 45%, no personal allowance and lost childcare just batters you and makes you wonder why you bother. An effective tax rate of 62% plus no childcare help adds up to a net of beyond 100% "tax".

Of course you're going to go part time,and if you have the liquidity, chuck as much into a pension as you can.

Its the stupidest most envious system, and actually inhibits our ability to take in tax and provide public service, all because of optics.

Interestingly, societies with higher male participation in childcare tend to have better and more comprehensive provision than we do. Perhaps there's something to that.

They probably have better paternity leave and other policies that make men feel that childcare is not solely the responsibility of women. That is where I would like to see the money go. I don't particularly want policies that encourage both parents of preschool children to work full time.

Agree. There is such a gap between children who haven’t been to nursery and those that haven’t. I’d rather it be equal.

Rather than remove the childcare cap at £100k can they actually help more families by removing the Child benefit cap which sits at £50-£60k

This is a party that took away child benefit from hard working families and from people who have more than two children!

The party that oversaw child poverty increase, reliance of hard working families on foodbanks and created enough fiscal drag to make people like myself in a modest job pay the 40% tax rate!

I support this and would also support removing the 60k income threshold for child benefit.
They are particularly unfair policirs as they look at a single income of one parent not the household income of two parents living together.
My DC are now too old forvus to benefit but it really hurt us when I was a SAHM and child benefit was removed because DH earnt 60k.
So I think they should be universal benefits because raising DC is expensive, birth rate is falling and there's never any income threshold for pension benefits like winter fuel allowance and free bus passes.
However I did roll my eyes when Kemi announced this as it was her predecessors that bought it in! ! Iain Duncan Smith and David Cameron insisting that our family on a single income of 60k was the richest 10% of the country really made my blood boil.
If the the Tories regretted their policies they had 15 years to change it. So why sudden change of direction now?
This is just blatent electioneering imo.

All of this! Labour desperately needs to catch up and do a growth impact assessment on all the taxes and put forward a package of tax reform that removes taxes that are a disincentive to growth.

And replace them with taxes that are better for the economy. I.e., closing the tax loophole that gives horrible private equity firms a good tax deal as they load up successful companies with debt to purchase them and then cut costs and quality and run them into the ground. The UK needs investment but NOT that kind of investment: c.50% more deaths during COVID in care homes owned by private equity firms.

No I dont agree with it.

‘AND causing shortage of workers in key areas like doctors and dentists who now often reduce their hours to stay under £100k thus causing longer waiting lists.’

Whats the evidence for that?

Thank goodness. Let’s hope it actually happens.

So the tax payer, according to probably the same people that will like this idea, shouldn’t have to fund the very basics for people who are struggling to earn enough to live on for whatever reason, but should fund childcare for those who are earning three times the average annual salary per annum? 🤔

60k is twice the national average. Why should the tax payer support a family earning twice the national average salary?

Non working poor families on uc do get it from two years old.

Because someone with only one single parent earning 60k is much worse off that two parent households both earning 60k between them (the national average) why should a single mum like me
whose worked extremely hard for my professional career all through school and higher education not get child benefit when two people who dosed around in school and have average, easy jobs, get it? When their household in come is the same or 1p less than mine, they also pay much less tax than me?

I don’t think you understand that the cliff edge nature of this policy means thousands of men and women refuse promotions and pay rises every year as it would take them over the edge and cost them materially more. This is short termism ( arguably by individuals but definitely by government) - we need people to aspire to earn more without ridiculous penalties . hallelujah to change!

Yes, I'd love the tax on my meagre earnings to be put towards supporting wealthy families. Thank goodness the Tories won't get in.

Excellent news. Does she talk about removing the child benefit threshold too?

Don’t be ridiculous the amount of people
this impacts is small, 4%earn over 100k and many will be well over so nowhere near a cliff edge or well past the age of childcare .

'It would make sense because then the country wouldn’t need to rely on dastardly immigrants to enhance the workforce.'

Well given the country only needs more workers because of the 10million increase in population due to uncontrolled mass immigration, if we stop mass immigration we will stop needing more workers.

Well of course they are. Aren't the Conservatives the party that help make rich people richer and poor people poorer? Ditto their pledge to reduce inheritance tax. It's practically always better financially off people who end up paying it.

Why should the tax payer pay for people to sit on their backside all day doing nothing?

Why should the tax payer pay for people to get 30hrs free child care when they aren't working?

Why should the tax payer pay for healthcare for anyone that rocks up to the UK hospitals from anywhere in the world?

Why should the tax payer pay for people to have more children, when those people can't afford to pay for the children themselves?

etc

It's not fair is it. Life is just not fair!!