In not having much sympathy with a couple on £45k plus per year having some benefits cut?

[ssd]

There is loads of this on the news just now about how "middle income" families will be having some child tax credits cut and might be paying more tax. They news are showing what to me looks like comfortable off families having to do with a bit less. Is this really so bad? I know an income of £45-£50k per year might not be much in central London but will keep you in style in parts of the north, but how bad will it be? So people might have to change jobs/give up the second car/holiday at home instead of Spain every year? SO WHAT? There are plenty of us living on less than £25k a year who have had to cut back since having kids and take this as a fact of life.

I know MN is made up of mostly middle earners and I'll get pelters for this, but I don't really care. Anyone I know on a middle income can afford to give up some things _ its called life.

DP earns £46,000. We could manage without our child tax credit of £40 a month. However we have a large mortgage and expensive travel costs so if we also lost child benefit it would really affect us.

We pay for private healthcare through dp's company. We could save on that the recoup the cost of losing ctc as we tp up the company payment by £40 or so pounds a month. It then means we put more of a strain on the NHS!

Our child tax credit is very small and of course we can and will manange without it. Our child benefit on the other hand is £185 every four weeks and that is going to leave a big hole in my income if that is axed.
We don't own a second car and we holiday at home every year. I don't drink coffee and our greatest luxeries are probably subscriptions to Private Eye and the Radio Times. I have one child in full time nursery and one child in part time after school club.
My income on paper is no where near my income available to feed and clothe the family once childcare is paid.
I've read a few of these threads since the new government came in and they are all the same - full of people spitting bile at those they perceive to be too well off and justifying it under the heading of 'the country is broke'. It's class hatred - and the government are joust going to encourage it
The universality of child benefit supports jobs and production because it is spent or saved within this economy. For many sahms it is the only money they feel is theirs.

Agree with minx. (similar situation here)

It's an easy, knee-jerk response to suggest raising taxes for the higher earners. But I just wanted to introduce three points for your consideration to demonstrate why it simply isn't that easy.

The first is, there are not very many higher earners. There are millions of middle income families. To raise the same amount of tax from the higher earners, you would end up having to raise taxes signficantly.

The second is that already, higher earners pay a massive amount more in tax than middle income earners. Roughly the top 20% of earners pay around 90% of all income taxes raised.

The third point, is that there is an effect called the Laffer Curve, which proves that if you increase taxes by a significant proportion you raise LESS tax than if you hadn't raised the tax rates to start with. This is because higher tax rate people have more money and more choices (to give up work, or to move or whatever).

Finally, the 50% tax rate is the one of the highest tax rates in the world now. Only one or two Scandanavian countries have higher tax rates. Go any higher and the country will suffer.

We have a huge mortgage but that was our choice. I'm not sure that make us deserving of tax credits though?

if i work bloody hard, and SMART why should i be made to feel like a fat cat, somehow guilty and tainted? i am happy to pay higher tax, i'm happy not to have benefits. but don't make me feel guilty for my success. i've worked my bloody arse off for it.

cut capital gains tax completely. if you have the chutzpah to make more money from your savings, why should you be penalized?

increase tax for middle to high earners.

that way you give low income earners a bit of a helping hand and some encouragement to try more entrepreneurial things.

thank god we don't live in a socialist state because that doesn't work does it?

people need incentives. you take that away and you take away ambition. everyone suffers.

ScreaminEagle they HAVE just cut their salaries.

YABU and very presumptous.

£45K might sound alot but you don't know individual circumstances, levels of financial commitment, childcare costs etc. If you have a small mortgage, low council tax and not many outgoings then maybe it is alot.

If you have 2 kids in nursery at over £1000 a month, a big mortgage (not especially because it's a big house, just that's how it is for some) and other outgoings, it's probably more significant to lose CTC.

It IS insulting to assume that all people who earn over £45K are living some cappucino lifestyle. You don't know their circumstances and like Minx says above - often people have worked very hard to get those salaries, having sacrificed their twenties to training and university and having no money for a while.

Our joint income is around the 45K mark (or it will be when I'm no longer on ML)

We do not struggle for money but we are not well off by any means

We live rurally so two cars a necessity - dh and I would not be able to get to work without a car apiece, dd1 would not be able to get to school.

When I go back to work, childcare costs in excess of £600 per month for 3 days/week means that money will be incredibly tight

We don't holiday abroad
We don't have sky/cable
We hardly ever go out for meals/drinking

I agree with the poster above that Tax Credits shouldn't be seen as a benefit,they are in place of the tax code changes that used to happen years ago

Without our tax credits and CB we'd be screwed.

Quattro, those are all good points, except that the Laffer Curve doesn't 'prove' anything. It's a model, a hypothesis.

To say there are 'not very many' higher earners is also false. Someone else claimed back up the thread that around 10% of earners get over 45k.

And lastly, I believe the country is already suffering.

It is so frustrating that such bitterness and hatred is exlicitly and rudely expressed on MN. Off the point I know, but it doesn't say much for the female nature!

I don't think I can complain about a cut BUT I agree that my situation as a SAHM with a dh earning 45k is very very different to a family where both parents works and have a dual income of the same amount. Child care costs are enormous and we would struggle to manage if we had to pay that.

thestranger there are men on MN aswell.

Maybe there aren't as many!

does anyone know the correct definition for what is classed as a middle earner? as in salary figures.

when I go back to work from maternity leave and we have 2 in nursery (just for 1 year thank God then dd goes to school) i don't want to think about how skint we will be. DH is really struggling to cover everything at the mo without my money going in which pays the bills.

I will be working for £100 a month after nursery fees in a stressful demanding job (therapist in CAMHS) prob having my pay frozen. Oh and the likelihood of ds having his 15 hours of childcare a week when he's 3 taken.

the dcs clothes are from H&M/Tesco/Asda
I have only been to waitrose once in my life
We've stpooed going out for coffee/bruch as it's so extortionate

but clearly because we don't want to move into a smaller house (3 bed semi at mo hardly a mansion ) in a shitty area OR me give up work then bleat on about how poor we are we should be penalised

Why is it deemed okay on here to insult people who earn higher than average?

We are middle earners (not high as 45k) and work bloody hard for the money. Cappuccino lifestyle it isn't.

Doubt it would be okay if I insulted the lower earners or those in reciepts of benefits.

but everyone is having to cutback, it isn't a case of penalising you because you dont want to move. (which by the way, alot of people will have to do things they dont want to do)

What LadyintheRadiator says.

One thing I have learned from MN is that it's pointless to make assumptions. An income of 45k could mean a family struggling with two full time jobs and childcare costs of over 1000k per month and a cramped house in a hugely expensive part of the country.

Or it could mean a family who got onto the housing ladder years ago, have virtually no mortgage, masses of equity and one job between them.

MN is full of surprises. Posters who write as though they are almost on the poverty line turn out to have sky packages and expensive gadgets. Posters who seem on the surface to have a high income, have huge outgoings just to keep a roof over their heads, pay childcare so they can work, and pay essential bills.

Totally pointless OP.

TheBride is right - there aren't enough of the 'rich' to make enough difference. Yes they can be taxed more, and are being with the new 50% rate over £150k and the loss of a tax free allowance once you are earning over £100k.
If the deficit is to be addressed then those of us on lower incomes than that need to make a contribution as well.

DH earns enough that we don't get any tax credits, but we are not very far over that threshold. We have a big mortgage, and I don't work at the moment.
In theory we could move to a less expensive area, but in practice we don't have enough equity in the house to do that as prices are still down on where they were when we bought.
With the increase in NI, and the possibility that we will lose CB we are having to think about our finances. DH is looking for a new job, and I'm going to be starting to do some language teaching from home in the evenings to earn some money. I can't go out to work during the day as we can't afford the childcare.

It annoys me when people say 'oh just give up your latte and your second car'. We have one car, and have coffee out perhaps once or twice a month.

What would the tax rate be if everyone paid the same percentage - but on every scrap of their income (ie no tax free band at the bottom end, no clever tax avoidance schemes elsewhere) - and the same for companies? I don't mind if we all share the pain - but I have the sneaking suspicion that some of us are sharing more than others...

All of this will be fine on two conditions, inflation doesn't kick in (anyone seen the price of fuel today ?) and interest rates stay low and the banks pass those savings on to customers and do not repossess.
Any changes and we will literally see middle class families in cardboard boxes.

As someone else said, i would be more bothered about surestart than having child benefit and child tax credit taken away. We could probably manage without so im not too bothered, although we do live in central london so money does not go as far as in some other places.

very true violethill we know people who earn less than us but who have a tiny/no mortgage and they are far better off than we are because they bought their houses years and years ago.

I really regret not buying a little flat when I first qualified as a nurse 12 years ago as in M/CR is would have probably trebled in value during the housing boom. I bought my first flat near the city centre 8 years ago for £85k sold it 3 years later for £120k so not bad but 4 years previous to me buying it it was sold as a new build for £35k gutted!