Child benefit should be removed from households with £60k income

[LowLevelGrumpMostly]

I don’t get why the government doesn’t allow a single parent on £60k to claim - isn’t allowed child benefit but a couple on £99.9k is, where the couple is likely to have lower childcare costs. So much money could be released for other stuff - if a single mum on £60k doesn’t need CB why should a couple on more get it?

The threshold hasn’t changed in years and it should have.

I'm sorry to say that it seems to me that the government's objective with Child Benefit is to phase it out gradually. With rising inflation and salaries increasing in line, more and more people will breach the £50k limit, so fewer and fewer people will benefit.

I remember when it was a universal benefit paid in the form of a book of vouchers that could be stamped and cashed at the post office. Then there was a big hoo haa about "even Prince Charles" being able to get it and the means testing came in. They had to draw a line somewhere and they made a right old hash of it. It was far better when it was not means tested but I doubt they would go back to the old way. By the way when I got CB for my first it was £7 something and even then in the 1990s it was hardly worth anything

The UK is rare in making so little allowance in the tax system for dependents. Universal child benefit was a simple way of making up for this without introducing household taxation until they took this ridiculous and unfair approach to means testing it.

Why should a dual income (and potentially well-earning) household get a higher tax allowance just because they have children?

What about single people like myself who can barely make it through the month because because everything is cheaper if you’re in a couple?

if you’re going to give a higher tax allowance give it to single people - no matter if they have kids or not. That would be much fairer and would offset the huge amounts of damage that previous governments have done by encouraging dual income households.

Isn’t it also to encourage both parents to work and increase the size of the workforce? A household where the man earns £50k and the woman doesn’t work has two options to increase their household income:

1. The man looks for a better paying job
2. The woman gets a job

With 2) they get the benefit of keeping their child benefit and a second personal tax allowance.

I think you’re right, but is it awfully short sighted. We already have a too low birth rate, this is just going to make things worse.

It's not that it's "too costly" to implement a fairer system.

The poorest children and the most vulnerable women would suffer if the system moved over to assessing on household income rather than individual.

Women campaigned for years for the right to be taxed as individuals. If your financial affairs are assessed as a household you can have no privacy from your partner and those trying to escape abusive relationships are kept trapped.

When benefits are means-tested a lor of the poorest fanilies simply do not claim. Having CB as a universal benefit that everyone is entitled to, and putting the onus on wealthier people to pay it back, means that the poorest children still get it.

These are the people we are protecting.

In order to protect those people, single parents earning £60-£100k are a little bit less well off. Boo hoo. Sorry but your suffering is not as important as those who would suffer if things were nicer for you.

So you would advocate taking money away from people with children, and spending it (and more) on the administration of that system? Out of principle? Really?

@Britpop123
"So you would advocate taking money away from people with children, and spending it (and more) on the administration of that system? Out of principle? Really?"

Yep. Without hesitation. Because yeh, principle. We are church mice compared to most of DC's friends whose parents could e a s i l y afford to provide their children with whatever enrichment or savings their current child benefit payments facilitate out of their salaries. I manage to both save and enrich on a very modest salary. I work with children and families who have very, very little and whose lives would be made immeasurably more bearable with additional support, and I'd redirect the child benefit of the well-off to them in a heartbeat.

We should never accept a crappy status quo because 'computer says no' which is what your argument basically says. Reform is possible where there is political will. A system for a finer calibration of means testing child benefit (as well as winter fuel payments etc) could definitely be put in place and need only be costly in its conception and roll out.

Little expense is spared in coming after those who have the least, afterall.

I’m not saying “computer says no” I’m saying that the costs of implementing this would be more than the amount taken. That’s been shown to be the case.

yes the current set up is unfair, yes households benefit over single parents. I’m just not sure that taking money away out of principle when the overall impact is negative is the right approach.

you say you’d re-direct the child benefit but in reality there would be nothing left to redirect, costs will have eaten it all up

its a poor principle in my mind if it makes some people worse off and no one better off

Women campaigned for years for the right to be taxed as individuals. If your financial affairs are assessed as a household you can have no privacy from your partner and those trying to escape abusive relationships are kept trapped.

Solving the unfair policy re. child benefit and single parents doesn't require financial affairs to be assessed as a household. Cant it be solved by just adding a tick box on the self assessment form to indicate you live in a single adult household so the threshold can be increased accordingly?

It's unfair. It stinks

I would return CB to being a universal benefit, but allow the cash value to wither, putting all future resources into means tested family benefits.

This would mean women (and it's usually women who claim) getting NI credits and continuation of auto-issuing of the DC's NI numbers based on existence in the CB system.

Also, I think getting something back was an important part of the original concepts of the welfare system. And that it is worth retaining some form of mutuality.

Also, I remember how hard-won was independent taxation for married women, and I think the current omnishambles is a big step back on that as well.

I never understand the ‘I’m alright and doing it with less’ so everyone else can too. You might have no mortgage. No childcare fees. Everyone can suffered with the COL crisis so the money for our kids would be welcomed regardless of being on the poverty line or not. It should be universal.

Labour tried something like this for child tax credits last time they in but it got changed after a couple of years. I think the issue was the money was often not getting to the kids/primary carer generally the mother if they did not work as the tax saving went to the working partner who wouldn’t always pass on

But that wouldn’t be fair either as a single parent could earn £100k but a two adult household could have one person earning £60k and one working part time earning £5k and have to pay all the child benefit back. No government will introduce a policy where it works out better as a single parent than being married as it’s seen as not promoting family values

If a parent is working part time they don't have childcare costs.

Plus 2 parents they get 2 x tax free allowance.

Plus they share household bills.

There is no way that anyone would choose to be a single parent thinking they would gain financially due to child benefit thresholds. The maths don't add up.

But anyway it could at least be done at 75% like council tax. SO £75,000 for single parent household.

@HolyGuacamole28
I never understand the ‘I’m alright and doing it with less’ so everyone else can too. You might have no mortgage. No childcare fees. Everyone can suffered with the COL crisis so the money for our kids would be welcomed regardless of being on the poverty line or not. It should be universal.
I should have clarified. I wouldn't presume to suggest it could be done if I didn't consider my own circumstances pretty much in line with average household outgoings: mortgage, car, childcare fees, two DC (one SEN with associated additional expenses congruent with diagnosis but no DLA as have not claimed), pets. No Student loan or credit card debt to service, so that's something.
£60k is a large amount of money irrespective of what anyone says. It is disingenuous to suggest it is not enough to raise a family on.

The issue we should be discussing isn't whether £60k is a large amount of money or not.

The issue is that a 2 parent family can earn twice as much as a single parent family, share the household bills and the parental workload and receive a government benefit.

The single parent does not. So the single parent is effectively paying to help other families who are better off than them in every way.

This should be addressed.

But there’s all sorts of anomolies in it where it’s not fair. For example if it’s a two adult household but the second adult is disabled so can’t work and still needs childcare as can’t manage care full time. It’s also not fair if a single parent who earns under £50k has a new partner move in that earns over £50k then they have to pay the child benefit back even if it’s not their kids. the only way to make it completly fair to be assess on household income in total which is unlikely to happen due to independent taxation which has all sorts of other ramifications so it will never happen

There should be different benefits for the disabled.

If a partner moves in they are sharing household costs etc. as 2 x adult household.

The single adult household issue has been solved with council tax. It just requires the same solution for child benefit IMO.

At the moment it's just another stick to bash single parents (mostly women) with.

To me - the criteria should be that benefits should be based on household income and taxes should be based on individual income (since everyone has their own income and is taxed on that)
The system is already complicated and costly..

Yes, that was one of the reasons why I thought it was crazy to move away from the previous system that upheld those principles (with CB being a non-means tested benefit) to a unique and flawed system - which introduced brand new complications and costs (and didn't even have a prior example already in use to follow).

If it's administrative efficiency and lower costs, you'd reverse the omnishambles of the Cameron changes. And keep taxation and benefits separate.

I don't understand the nonsense that it would cost too much to implement. Just do it via tax. Job done.

This is what many countries do. You claim allowances for dependents, which could include non-working spouses or even elderly parents as well as children.

Personally I think a UBI will eventually be the way forward. Scrap all benefits and state pensions (except disability). Scrap tax allowances. Give everyone who has been resident for 18 years a basic income and tax anything they earn over that at a flat rate. The savings in administration would be immense.