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.

That sounds more like a wish than an insight.

So that people can get back to work or education. So that children have more opportunities for early years education too which has proven benefits to child development. Many countries have universal free childcare with positive outcomes, specifically, in maternal employment. The situation with childcare in the UK is scandalous and disadvantages women, especially single parent households.

How much would be saved by mak8ng it Universal, rather than a complex administration system with cut off dates, codes, and entitkement based on birthdates and termdates where babies born minutes apart become entitled to funding months apart.

They policy means that someone with 2 dc earning £100k is bringing home the same as someone with 2 dc earning £70k and less than someone with 2 dc earning £71-99k. People earning more should get more. The person with 2 dc (or possibly 1, I’m willing to be corrected) earning £99k needs a promotion (or increase in hours) to £144k just to stand still. Any sensible person would expect an increase in take home pay when getting a 55% pay rise and will turn it down in cases where they will not just stand still, but be significantly worse off. You would never think it ok that a person earning £20k a year on part time hours who applied for a job paying £31k to literally only have the same take home pay as they did in the lower paid job so why is it ok for higher earners? Like the fiscal drag on the 40% rate that has meant band 6+, and even a lot of band 5 nurses no longer picking up extra shifts as they are taxed at 40%, the pension debacle that has encouraged NHS consultants to work part time, the VAT cliff edges that discourage people from trying to grow small businesses beyond the turnover thresholds, the slashing of tax free dividends (on already taxed money) and of capital gains tax allowance which discouraged investment, it’s an anti growth policy and we - all of us - need some growth in the economy. I won’t be influenced just in a policy that exclusively only benefits the top 2% but growth doesn’t come from “who can we tax more in order to pay benefits?”. Behaviour is MASSIVELY dictated by money. Encouraging people to work less, work at a lower grade than they can, keep their businesses small, not invest in anything as the capital gain tax will probably mean you aren’t any better off than if your money had been in a Nationwide instant access account is not good for the economy as a whole so isn’t just a 2% issue.

On a purely local level, all nine of our GPs are part time because of this tax. All of them !!

Think how much easier it would be to get a GP's appt if they could each work an extra shift without it costing them money.

To be fair, a lot of GPs would be part time anyway because of the workload.

But the workload would be easier to deal with if all nine GPs were working full time, or even 3/4 time.

The tax creates a self-fulfilling problem.

How do you know it is because of this tax? Many GPs have always worked part time, particularly those with children.

No it wouldn't.

I think there should be universal free childcare for all, especially for those actually funding it. To have these cliff edges does not work as it stops people progressing their careers at key points and negatively impacts women’s long term careers.
I did not have the benefit of funded childcare when mine were little, but I am working part time simply because I would get charged over 60% in a marginal tax rate and I have already stuffed by pension pot to the level I am happy with. There are so many parts of the system disincentivising people to maximise their earnings and if the economy is to grow, they need to be removed.

Having said that, I believe the nurseries currently use the paying people to subsidise the rest so who is going to plug the gap is a big question. If it becomes universal and state run largely then they will hopefully also put in proper early years teachers in all settings and early work on SEND etc should be able to start much sooner and feed into the NHS and primary school system. There are so many issues with young children now that I think it is important to have the universal childcare for all (and I include families on benefits in that too).

Best friends with one of them. She says it's a source of on-going discussion.

This! All GP friends I know work part time because they say it’s so busy, but if they all worked full time it wouldn’t be!

Increasing hours would require seeing more patients and therefore generating more work.

GPs are not only opting to work part time because of the tax incentives.

Why do you think everyone who used to have young children thinks the current system is unfair? Many would have got much less or no help with childcare even when on a much lower income than 100k. Whilst I agree that a cliffedge isn't great I don't have a problem at all with high earners paying for their childcare.

I am friends with a lot of GPs and they have always worked part time.

I’ve lived in a country with universal state run nursery provision and the logic is that it helps both parents get back into the economy working full time and maximising the tax earned from the state. This country is world renowned for having one of the best funded public services and happiest kids in the world.

And yet Britain does the opposite because the likes of @Carr0tT0p wpuld be jealous otherwise. Take a medical researcher. A post-doc salary isn’t going to cover two children in nursery full time, it doesn’t pay for this parent to be in work if their partner earns over £100k and we have this person with immense skill and talent sat at home bored out of their brains with small children. This makes no sense. This is not a sensible way to run a country at all. We train our citizens, invest in their education so we can reap the benefit in the form of taxes when they work, and yet we incentivise them not to use those skills. Madness.

Yes I agree you put it well. It’s madness.

What percentage of the population earn over 100k snd what proportion have preschool age children? Pretty small I imagine and most of them will vote Tory anyway. It's not exactly going to swing voters from the left.

I don’t want to vote for a party that cravenly designs policies purely to win votes. I want to vote for a party that designs policies with the aim of running a country well.

So there's no one to vote for then on that basis. They all based their promises around gaining votes.

Lots of voters are capable of seeing the bigger picture. I've never earned anywhere near £100k and never will (never even been a higher rate taxpayer), but I work with such people and see how the insane tax cliff edges and high marginal tax rates affect their behaviour, i.e. reducing working hours, not taking promotions, not taking extra shifts, etc. I can see how it is detrimental to the UK economy, stifling growth, causing longer waiting lists in the NHS etc. Whilst it won't affect my own tax bill, I can certainly see how I'd benefit from a stronger, growing economy and shorter NHS waiting lists.

Same. It’s obvious growing the number of high earning women is a good thing.

@Woodeny

And yet Britain does the opposite because the likes of wpuld be jealous otherwise.

Nail on the head. You can't run a country on the politics of spite, hate and envy as such people just want to drag everyone down in the name of "equality". Great, lets all be equally poor and suffer crap public services". It is indeed madness.

I agree with the policy, we are specifically not progressing in our career further until our youngest is at school.

I also think it pushes women out of the work force because the cost of childcare isn’t worth working. By giving a small concession like this, more women would join the workforce and progress which is ultimately better for the economy in the long term - preventing skill fade and raising taxation.

Alternatively perhaps men could take responsibility for childcare too so it doesn't just effect women's careers.