Do you think the government should raise the threshold for child benefit?

[nancydroo]

My understanding is if one person in the household earns £60k the household are not entitled to claim child benefit. If they earn £50k or more they get taxed on it but still get to claim it. However, if the combined household income is higher than this threshold but shared over a couple they can still claim child benefit. Do you think the government should raise this threshold? Are you nearing the threshold but going to miss the child benefit as income?

Of course it should be bloody household income- angers me immensely how they penalise individual workers

I think the dicking around with child benefit is unfair by design. I think the move from this universal benefit to a means tested one was a tactical manouvere which jettisoned the middle classes from a social contact. It was the starting pistol after which a whole host of benefits were cut and strangled but were lost quietly because the noisiest and most politically powerful segments of society had already had their nose put out of joint.

I think the disparity between households who cling on to child benefits with two lower incomes and those who lose it with one larger one is part of that same social nudge to wedge another gap in society. The arbitrariness seeds bitterness and discord and keeps people feeling disconnected from one another.

So, it is unfair and, given how little is saved by the treasury given the necessary administration required in the process now, it is clear that unfairness is entirely the point.

What happens in @Cosycover case?

I thought if one person earned over £50k, they would have to declare on self assessment and pay the CB tax (on a sliding scale to £60k when full repayment isndue). And that it doesn't matter which parent the CB is being paid to, as soon as 1 parent in a 2-parent household is over the threshold, they have to declare and pay back?

Yep. I'm a single parent, paying through the nose for childcare but earning in the taper zone so I have to repay a portion of my CB. It's increasingly annoying as my real wage feels less and less too.

Agree there is a lack of political will to address this for single parents though, and there is a choice argument about families who are able to afford a SAHP. I think it'd be more efficient to still have it as a universal benefit tbh.

The more I think about this, the more unfair it is. A 2 parent household earning the same as me where both parents work are already better off as they have 2 x tax allowances. Then they get CB on top.

It just seems so so unfair to single parents. It's hard enough when you're the sole parent and provider for DC, to then have less financial resources available to you too.

Yes they should.
I am sahm and them £87 child benefit money is my only one income for last 12 years.
DH earns close to 50k soon, however we don’t share his money, as I keep the CHB for me.
Now when he reach 50k I understand it will be reduced or taxed it so I will have none money at all.

@Catsforeverinlove you can carry on claiming, your DH will have to pay a tax charge.

But why isnt his money family money? There's a bigger issue there.

What would be an equalizer is to have childcare costs fully deducted from the household parent with the lower income. Forget ‘child support’. The thought should be about the household and making sure families are able to afford to work.

This would really open up opportunities for the lower income parent in a relationship and provide a lower taxable income for a single parent, who should receive far more support than they currently receive.

I’d also ban zero hour contracts. If you can’t plan your workforce needs you shouldn’t be in business.

@Nopeforme he does pay the rent and food shopping. I pay the rest from the CHB if any left or I sell my items I accrued before I had kids.

Yep agree should be £90-£100k total household income.

we’ve all seen on here how women suffer from financial abuse from all income brackets. Child Benefit should be given to every women irrespective of household income.
It can be clawed back with higher taxation on high earners.
Child benefit includes National Insurance which counts towards state pension.

Until the rules changed in 1991 a wife’s income used to be taxable on her husband, this is partly why a lot of older pensioners the wife’s pension is dependent on the husbands NI record. My DM ran her own business (as an accountant) but my dad had to file the tax return and pay the tax. It meant a lot of husbands kept their wives short of money because they knew what they earned.

It isn’t possible to join up the tax system so households are taxed, there is too much movement in households and it would leave a lot of people in vulnerable situations and would be going backwards. In US (where they have joint taxation) it is an election and then you are jointly taxed pretty much for life and you can end up worse off long term.

What would happen if your partner was self-employed and didn’t pay their tax - if you are taxed as a household you would have to pay it and HMRC would get an attachment of earnings on your salary. They won’t care that it wasn’t you that earned it you would pay tax as a household.

The level of income you pay it back at needs to rise and a wider band. So say £60-85 so there isn’t such a cliff edge. When it was introduced £50k was a high salary now your don’t even pay higher rate tax.

I think it should be abolished altogether. And more allowance made in state benefits and taxation.

I used mine as a clothing allowance for me - didn't need it. A lot of people don't.

Give the money to those who need it not universally.

Also any threshold should be lifted for your years Mat leave. We need both our incomes. My partner might earn £50-60k it depends on overtime he’s offered. He might not. We’re already losing £1500 a month because I only get the also crap SMP of £600pm. Even if he earns 50-60k it’s not close to when we were both FT and I’m not “choosing” to be a SAHP because we have enough money. I’m struggling through a year because we want a child.

I can't help but to wonder whether households with a joint income of 60k actually need child benefit though?
We've a household income of 50k and the usual outgoings. We definitely do not need child benefit. It goes on stuff we could afford otherwise as we have only 2DC. We live fairly frugally but have the things we need. I have friends who simply put CB in a savings account; I think that confounds the point. I would rather CB was reserved for families on much lower incomes.

This.

I'm a single parent covering all costs, housing, working full time and earning about £51k. My marginal tax rate is 62.5% at the moment.

And they claim they want people in their fifties to carry on working !! They have a funny way of showing it.

That's financial abuse. You are in a pretty precarious position there.

Sorry meant to quote Catsforeverinlove there.

It does matter which parent it is paid to.

It was originally called family allowance and it was paid to mothers to ensure that children were fed, and the male (sole) earner couldn't spend it all in the bookies or the pub on pay day, leaving women and children to starve.

Now called Child Benefit, it is as valuable at limiting financial control and abuse today, as it has ever been.

In Ireland CB is universally paid to every child, regardless of the parents' income. The reasoning is that it is for the child and not the parents, and in some cases it would be the only income a mother has access to in the case of financial abuse. There have been musings over the years about making it means tested, but that would be political suicide.

Having it universal and not means-tested like other benefits means that no one gets missed out. There are a huge number of people entitled to other benefits who don't claim them for various reasons but the simplicity of child benefit means it's easier to get. Adding barriers to deter wealthier claimants will also stop children in genuine need from getting it.

Having it based on individual taxation records means that women in financially abusive situations can still get it. For some women it's the only discretionary spending money that they get. Anyone can claim CB, even those who earn over £60k - it's just returned to the government via tax if they are a high earner. This makes it a lifeline for some.

Any move to make the conditions based more on household income rather than individual income would be damaging to a huge number of women who valie their financial independence and don't feel the need to share 100% of their private financial information with partners that they share a home and bed with whilst maintaining that independence.

And I disagree that a couple both earning £40k are necessarily better off than a couple where one earns £60k and the other zero - the latter couple have 50 hours a week more of valuable time for childcare and houshold management tasks that the former couple have to outsource at great expense.

Of course it isn't perfect, and it isn't fair, but the unfairness is an acceptable consequence compared to the much worse consequences of the various other models that have been proposed on this thread.

It should be amended. Household income if single parent or joint income of both co parents, whether live together or not and set at £75,000. What they have now is not fit for purpose.

Making Child Benefit a universal benefit means that we are all benefiting from society. We are all invested in outcomes.

It’s the same as the NHS, it’s a universal benefit to all society, no one claims that the NHS is helping the ‘wrong‘ people. once benefits are provided to only one section of society it platforms division. People get upset that some people get for free things that others have to pay for. You can see it on this thread.

We rely on it and can't afford to put it away for the children like some people are able to. Wish we could.

Oh yes of course! I forgot, sorry