To be seriously worried the new govt are looking at cutting child benefit...

[cherrymama]

to 'middle class' families?What does that mean?We both work but have four kids and losing that income will seriously affect us...so please tell me IABU and that it won't happen!

It was the lead in the Guardian earlier today. Have a look.

The Tories don't like the poor unless they are "deserving". Unless you like forelock tugging, I wouldn't have much confidence that any benefits will be safe.

Shame not everyone considers it a priority to pay in then, expat. . . .

they are cutting the csf (children schools and families) department too, crazy why are kids services the first to suffer?

I wish they wouldn't confuse "middle income" and "middle class". The two don't always go together.

A few people have commented (on this very long thread!) about the £10k income tax allowance and how it will make us better off. It won't, and even David Willets (was Shadow Cabinet member) says so.
Left Foot Forward article here
David Willets piece here

The articles also explain how VAT is a regressive tax, affecting the poor disproportionately. The likely VAT rise will not be something that can easily be avoided - it will have a massive impact all round, but particularly for the less well-off.

"Well that's that then - CB and the CTF were/are the only thing my boys see for my 40% tax. "

So your children are schooled privately
You don't/wouldn't claim the free nursery places from age 3 or use childcare vouchers
You didn't give birth on the NHS and your children were not checked over after birth by NHS doctors
You have never seen a health visitor

etc etc etc

What a short-sighted attitude.

Yes, there's a lot of waste and that should be cut but it won't. It never is and if some is, new waste will spring up. The public sector is massive and micro managing it in order to save the kinds of money we need is just not economically viable.

When I say 50k + I mean individually, not as a family. I realise that, especially for people living in the south east, 50k in total doesn't always go very far.

It was great that Labour put so much into a failing NHS and schools; they needed it. But because of new technologies, people living longer and wanting more education, both those sectors will be increasingly expensive to maintain. Periodic tops are not the solution. They don't solve the problem of how we can keep paying for these sectors over years and decades. I'm afraid that university fees will have to go up as will income tax, but I can see the former happening much faster than the latter.

myfriendflicka, I adore your name because that is one of my all-time favourite children's books. I wish they'd make a new film of it.

theroseofwait - the fact that you can afford to save your child benefit and not spend it on essentials means you shouldn't have it.

i think it's truely depressing that only after a week in power they are cutting benefits which should benefit children. can't they even wait a month or two, surely there's lots of other services that could be cut. military spending maybe??

But they haven't cut anything yet. There hasn't been any official anouncement or a budget. The treasury were looking into cutting CB under labour.

Lauriefairycake-the fact that unlike some women I get off my posterior and work means I most certainly should.

Imsonottelling -I doubt the free nursery places will still be around when my eldest reaches three and I don't use childcare vouchers. I am hoping to educate my children privately (hence the serious saving) but I doubt strongly that I will manage it due to paying a ridiculous amount of tax for the government to waste. I teach in the state system and have spent years watching most of the resources going on the appallingly behaved/lazy while the rest of the children are largely ignored. We have had a mixture of NHS and private health care I will grant you, but my experiences with the NHS just cement my attitudes - I've seen too many translators etc. paid for by the taxpayer and the Health Visitor almost killed my 4 week old last week so I would hardly call her value for money. . . .

Well, I work p/t, pay tax and NI and just manage to pay childcare from my salary + my CB. I can live without my CTC (£38/mth) but I would find it hard to fill the £185 gap the CHB would leave each month.

I have a "good" job, after spending 5 years at uni (paid for by my parents and loans, which I have since paid back) but I still make slightly less than £10K/ yr, as I am only part-time.

To those saying, get a different job- DH is in the Royal Navy, so I doubt a request for him only to work shifts that fitted in with his wife's job would go down well! I am a vet, so most jobs available to me involve working until 7pm in the evening and on saturdays- find me a nursery that can manage those hours, and not cost all my wages. We rely on my dad to take up the slack- although he is surely entitled to a life as well.

The most obvious solution if raised NI/ cutting CHB is brought in would be for me to stop work altogether- this would save me in childcare, petrol costs, professional membership fees. It would also mean that I wouldn't be paying tax into the Governments coffers, and our lower income would mean that we spend less, thereby putting less back into the economy, so I really don't think the country would gain much from me quitting work.

The crazy thing is that I acually want to work- I like to keep up my professional skills (which the taxpayer helped me acquire in the first place) But if childcare costs are going to eat up my whole salary, I'm going to have to accept that it's not feasible for me to work. CHB was the one thing that helped to offset this

I would consider us a middle-income family. DH earns enough to pay the mortgage and the bills, I earn enough to pay the childcare. The more they effectively reduce the incoming money of families like us, the less we will spend and so the cycle continues. I laughed when I heard about the cabinet's gallant offer to take a 5% pay cut. I still think there are more sensible places to make cuts

re: the comments about the £10,000 personal allowance helping the rich more, well it would if they didn't introduce something to balance it out... but that would be too expensive.

What I expect to see instead would a lower withdrawal of the personal allowance (just like we already have if you earn over £100k). Or perhaps the level that the 40% rate starts at will be reduced.

I guess that will happen is that the new larger personal allowance will be phased out for higher rate taxpayers (or at maybe some other arbitrary level) so only basic rate tax payers will benefit.

Either way anyone earning over £50k should not expect to benefit, rather they will be subject to MORE tax to pay for this....

Fair enough I would have thought.

'I've seen too many translators etc. paid for by the taxpayer'

So?

'Health Visitor almost killed my 4 week old last week so I would hardly call her value for money'

• what?

I voted Labour. To be honest our joint income is over the tax credit limit and while I would be pissed off if Child Benefit were stopped, on balance I would prefer it to go to the more needy. I know people in million pound houses earning six figure sums who claim it.

I work in the public sector which I joined about 10 years ago. I accepted a lower wage than in the private sector because of flexi time and because I would get a reasonable pension at the end of it (not gold plated or mink lined but just enough to keep me out of poverty). It really scares me that they are trying to chop away at that. Labour tried it a few years ago but deferred it as there was an election coming up.

I have worked in Whitehall and know for a fact that there are consultants being paid 1000 - 20000 a DAY to do fuck all. In our case because there were not enough people in the dept with the skills, because training and investment in skills was the first to be cut back.

MumNWLondon - as the link says, the LibDem plan originally was to introduce something to balance it out, but that bit has got quietly dropped - and the proposal is still promoted as being good for people on lower and lowest incomes!

I would in principle be happy to pay more tax in order to pay for things that our society needs. But then I have not yet had my first child, have a manageable mortgage, and have savings...

'Shame not everyone considers it a priority to pay in then, expat. . . .'

Well, that's true. Many very well-off people pay nowt for being non-doms whilst people like DH get hammered.

But, having lived in a country with no or very limited welfare and no free healthcare, I'd prefer a few pisstakers to the other extreme, tbh.

"Lauriefairycake-the fact that unlike some women I get off my posterior and work means I most certainly should."

Bollocks - your sense of entitlement is as strong as theirs - you want something you don't need for nothing

You want to save your child benefit money (which you claim you don't need) for your children's future.

The government (ie.us) cannot afford to give you free money to 'save for the future'

Save your own damn money.

So in essence, yes you are using the services.

In fact you are paid your 40% tax band salary from the public purse, you will receive your pubic sector pension from the public purse, and yet you begrudge paying taxes?

Bloody hell.

In general we can't afford to give people money they don't need. I think this should be a fucking poster campaign

People who need child benefit should get it.