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?

To bring back taxation based on household income is regressive.

Yes but it is actually already applied on a household basis. We have to pay it back because my husband earns more than £60k, but it's not him claiming it. He's liable for the charge through his tax return despite the money coming into my account.

This is what I don't get - it is based on household income as per Snowballers example.

Why can't I declare I am a single parent and get CB if my earnings are below the combined £100k a couple can earn before the tax charge kicks in? No need to combine household earnings for everyone else then.

And that is to protect the interests of women like you, who might not have access to their partner’s income.

You can still receive the money directly, so your children don’t go short. Financial abuse can happen even in high earning households.

I agree it’s very unfair for single parent households, though. There used to be a sole parent uplift, I think. It would be good if that was reinstated.

I just cancelled m in as couldn't understand the pension bit. Mine are fixed but it stated you could not add pension contributions taken before tax and mine comes straight out my wages. I think I'm just being a bit thick to be honest.

Do those earning 'just over' realise that an increase in your pension contributions can get you back under the threshold to claim?

"The child benefit tax charge is based on your adjusted net income. This is your total taxable income – your basic salary plus any benefits you get from your job, rental income and so on, minus things such as pension contributions and gift-aided donations to charity. Any contributions made into a company or personal pension scheme will reduce your final adjusted net income."

A couple earning 60k with no need for childcare will be better off than a couple earning 80k needing childcare
Firstly CB is not for childcare. There’s a separate system of benefits for childcare. Secondly you could have a couple working full time and earning 60k and 20k =80k total, they would get no CB. But a couple working full time and earning 40k and 40k =80k total would get full CB. And they would pay less tax too! It’s unfair.

However, families with one earner over £60,000 who choose to have a SAHP have obviously decided they don't need any more income than that though
Thats not true at all! Being a SAHM is rarely a choice. Most SAHMs are in that situation because childcare would exceed their potential income from working. Their partner’s income is irrelevant. I know several SAHMs who struggle and desperately need more income but simply can’t afford to work because the family would be worse off.

People are raging about the crapness of the CMS. Trouble is no-one listens and no-one cares. If you owed tax credits 10p they’d hound you down with threatening letters until you paid it. Yet you have the CMS casually writing to you advising that they will be writing off your arrears because they can’t be arsed collecting them anymore. I wish my credit card company would just write to me and say ‘hey, not a problem we got ya, don’t bother paying us back’ 🙄 🙄

I think it should go back to being a universal benefit.

Simpler to administer, won't have the weird unfairness, and doesn't make a dog's breakfast of linking taxation to benefits.

BUT I'd freeze it and let the cash value be eroded by inflation over time. And out the money that would have been used for uplift, plus the additional costs of running the current not-fit-for-purpose system into CTC and WTC

But that argument is voided when it's a single parent household.

That one parent needs to work full time, no one at home to help with childcare and still loses it all.

Totally unjust and illogical..

Being a SAHM is rarely a choice. Most SAHMs are in that situation because childcare would exceed their potential income from working. Their partner’s income is irrelevant.

Their partner’s income allows them to stay at home; the family incurs no childcare costs. That is absolutely not ‘irrelevant’. That is a choice within the family. They could also choose (as many do) to work, pay the childcare and be worse off/no better off. The net effect in the short term (where childcare costs are highest when DC are young) is about the same as choosing not to work in order to do the childcare yourself.

It’s different for sole parents. If they don’t have a partner who’s earning to pay living costs, they either need to work, pay childcare & claim whatever they’re entitled to, or not work and claim whatever they are entitled to. Being much worse off in all scenarios.

I know it seems unfair that a family with 2x working parents earning £50K each is better off than a family with 1x working parent earning £100K, but child benefit isn’t going to make you rich in that scenario and the government wants more people earning in order to pay taxes. Economically, SAHPs aren’t valuable to them.

That is not to say that SAHPs aren’t valuable to society- they really are. And some people have much less choice than others about being at home rather than working. But in just pure earning = paying taxes it doesn’t make sense for the government to incentivise at-home parents.

I'm not expecting the govt to incentivise stay at home parents.

As a single parent, flat out paying our mortgage, providing for my child, paying tax and not claiming UC, I expect govt to recognise that my CB is used to feed my child and if there is any left over, to go towards school shoes.

The govt wants those of us in our 50s to keep working and keep earning them tax, but they really aren't making sense.

Absolutely, Mint. I was agreeing it’s shit for sole parents.

I was specifically saying a SAHP is a choice for a 2-parent household in a way it isn’t really a choice for a 1-parent household.

But in just pure earning = paying taxes it doesn’t make sense for the government to incentivise at-home parents
No, in terms of taxes it doesn’t make sense to incentivise SAHP. But life isn’t just about taxes. There are social benefits to SAHP, not just purely financial.

Their partner’s income allows them to stay at home; the family incurs no childcare costs. That is absolutely not ‘irrelevant’. That is a choice within the family. They could also choose (as many do) to work, pay the childcare and be worse off/no better off
You think people can just choose to be worse off? Some families don’t have money to spare so there isn’t a choice. If working leaves them worse off then they can’t work. Whether the partner earns a lot or a little (or even if they have no partner) is irrelevant. They can’t afford to do something that leaves them worse off.

It is easier for a 2 parent household to have a SAHP. But it’s still a choice for a 1 parent household. If claiming benefits and doing your own childcare results in significantly more money in your pocket than working and paying for childcare, you can’t work.

Yes! Definitely, people seem to think if you’re a higher tax payer you’re rolling in money, my house it falling apart, my children have to sleep in a box room together because the other two bedrooms have windows that don’t close anymore, I can’t afford to go out for meal or even a cheap takeaway. The gas and electric has risen so much as has the mortgage, I feel like my family is surviving not living, definitely needs to be altered and a change to two adults earning less than 50k but combined easily more!

It's very unfair to single parents

Less so for families with a sahp, not sure why the taxpayer should subsidise that.

Radix, to quote that ‘pure earning’ part you had to deliberately cut out the preceding sentences I wrote about social value of SAHP. Why do that just to make the absolute same point back?

We’ll have to agree to disagree that 1-patent families and 2-parent families have the same choices, I’m afraid.

Agreed. Your income is now a less relevant factor, superseded by where in the country you live and whether you have nursery aged children.

Wow we don't even earn £50k combined. Would love to earn that and give up my cb. We live relatively comfortably too. Don't know how some people complain

That sounds like a lack of imagination on your part.

Where I live, renting a modest two bed flat will set you back between £1.6-2k per month (mortgage on equivalent property marginally less), and full-time childcare not less than £1k per month. A single income of £50k gives you a take-home pay of £3k. Can you see how almost all of that is gone on just housing and childcare, even before paying any bills, eating, travelling to work, or clothing DC? It's not the breadline (been there, done that) but it's not particularly comfortable either.

This is based on a rapidly-gentrifying, grotty, high-crime area of zone 3 London btw. Not somewhere upmarket. I'd like to continue living here because it's where I grew up, it's where my family live, and it's in reach of my long-term job. And again, to reiterate, it's not a desirable area, even now it's still somewhere people make doubtful faces about. I don't accept that people like me should have to move away from our jobs and our support networks just because the housing market is a mess (which is a deliberate policy decision btw, rather than some random accident of the natural world).

It's also just bad policy. Means testing CB costs more than it saves, as PP have noted. It's a political move to pit people against each other, and it works. All taxpayers should complain about bad policy, even when they're not directly harmed by it. It's our money.

@Looneytune253 really?? Okay mortgage repayments £1250. Rent would be higher in the area I live. pension contributions taken straight of pay £400. The usual other bills and a loan (as never have enough left to save properly and had to have a car for work) come to around another £750 ish. This has only just gone up by the way. Plus the usual tax and national insurance.

Your combined income will have 2 lots of tax allowance.

Oh and I work 50 hour weeks to earn that much to cover my bills and money for food, petrol and my child. I’m left with mountains of cash every month 🙄

‘I’m not left’ that should say

You still get ni credits I even if you don’t receive child benefit as long as you’ve out a claim in in first place, you can have a claim but not actually receive any money

That correct, it’s the higher earning person who has to declare and pay back regardless of who it’s paid to in first place. It also doesn’t have to be a parent of the child. So in a situation where a person is receiving child benefit and they move a new partner in who earns over £50k then that person would be due to pay back some of the child benefit even though they haven’t received the money and it’s not their children