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.

Thanks

We all pay for public services and all get them. Those that need benefits get benefits. The 2% earning over £100k don’t need benefits and we as country can’t afford £700 million a year for them to have this particular benefit.

And re shock, we’ve had plenty of Tory shocks and crappy policies and the country is sick of them. Some common sense policies such as those outlined in Burnham’s speech will be hugely refreshing.

The way the policy currently works is stupid and disincentivises parents (normally mothers) from going back to work if their co parent (normally fathers) earn over the threshold. So we’re losing good teachers and nurses etc because returning to work isn’t financially logical. Not to mention those turning down promotions because it would cost them money!

Your argument really falls down when you say that 98% of people to receive benefits because they ‘really need them’.

Why is access to state education a ‘public service’ but preschool education ‘a benefit for the needy 98%’ only?

Should high earners have free access to state schools? Surely they can afford to fund this themselves too?

why non-working families?

We all pay for public services and all get them.

This is incorrect. Unless you're on 40k+ you don't pay for publice services, you are net recipient. Those on 100k+ pay 30% of all tax contributions but don't get public services such as free childcare.

Childcare is a cost of working so yes, there should be tax relief on it. It doesn't matter how much you earn - the highly paid will pay lots of income tax anyway.

But I think you should only get it for two children (and multiple births). Nobody needs more than two children, so if they want a 3rd (or beyond) then they can pay for their own childcare costs.

So they can look for a job? Or work part-time? Or get training to get them into work. Lots of reasons.

Giving up work | Mumsnet

Some of them are. Like OP on this thread, who is not a carer to her DP, they don't even live together, but she's considering registering as a carer and giving up work.
There are many more people like this.

Yes losing the tax allowance is bonkers too. I work 3 days a week and I am not sure it would be worth working 4. Maybe 3.5 but I'd be close to the limit then.

For months, if not well over a year, everytime I’ve gone on X I’ve been greeted by Helen Whately, from the Tories, telling me that disabled people, like me, are a huge problem. We’re the cause of all ills in this country. We’re feckless, lazy scroungers taking the piss out the tax payer driving round in our “free” cars just because we’ve got acne or tennis elbow. The country cannot afford to keep us anymore and should they win the next GE the Tories will make billions of pounds worth of cuts to sickness and disability benefits.

None of what she says is true. PIP is an in work benefit, that is very hard to get. We all have to send in copious amounts of medical evidence, most of us are assessed before we can get it too. It was the Tories that halted the assessments through Covid. They’ve not thought for one second how cutting people’s PIP will affect their ability to work. Why would they? They literally killed disabled people when Iain Duncan-Smith and Esther McVey were in charge of the DWP.

IMO the optics of this is terrible. Is there an argument that the cliff edge for people earning just over £100k should have help with childcare costs? Probably. Should millionaires or much higher earners get it? No. Should they even be thinking about it at the same time as cutting money for the most vulnerable in society? Absolutely not.

We should subsidise things we want more of.

We want more people earning over £100k, and we want more births.

These people pay in a huge amount and deserve something back.

Nobody needs 2 children. Or any children. If we’re only paying towards what other people need then we shouldn’t be paying towards childcare at all.

Though for a sustainable population those who do have kids needs more than 2 per couple to make up for those of us unable to have children. So maybe the benefit should exist, but only for those supporting the country by having three children. Those with just 2 can obviously afford to pay for childcare.

Quite. With falling birth rates we need to make it easier for people to have children.

Yes we should. Especially that first line. We do the opposite.

I am a believer in universal childcare, it serves many purposes. And it really doesn’t benefit the ultra wealthy, it helps working parents who happen to make a good salary. The very wealthy won’t use it, the have nannies anyway, this will benefit regular tax payers who are currently being squeezed by ridiculous childcare costs. We don’t means test the NHS or education, childcare should be the same, those who want to pay for something “better” have that option.

Why do you assume voters vote in their shallow self interest? Not all voters think like you!

My nursery fees (for 2) are £3k a month. That comes out of post tax earnings. I work because I enjoy my career but I don’t earn enough after tax, childcare and commute costs to buy a coffee a day.

It wouldn’t benefit the relatively high earning workers whose personal allowance had tapered away.

It won't win new voters. It will only win votes from people with young children who would have voted for Tories anyway.

That's how it has always been though.

People with young children, parents of people with young children, people who no longer have young children but remember the unfairness of the system and people who simply don't believe that higher earners need to be everyone's milking cows.

My childcare days are behind me and there wasnt much help available when mine were young, but I'm in favour of this policy.

It's not a vote winner.. and the Tories aren't getting in anytime soon.

The system of tax allowances for children was scrapped by Labour from 1977 to 1979 and replaced by universal child benefit paid to mothers. Universal child benefit lasted to 2013 when it became means tested. Universal child benefit was simple, well understood and had minimal administration costs (Inland Revenue workers hated the tax allowance system).

PS. Any coincidence that next April all MPs salaries will go over £100k for the first time and they would all loose their childcare?

Oh I don’t vote in my self interest but for people within the UK who really need help, the good of the country as a whole( its people and environment)and with the thought that who knows what life will lead you to need. What I don’t do is put the top 2% of earners as my priority when voting.