So child benefit to go for higher rate taxpayers

[foxinsocks]

So says George osbourne on breakfast telly. Missed the details but sounds like it comes in from 2013!

just written to my MP to complain.

I am lp living in London paying extortionate rent (so much so that I receive a small amount of HB) NB its the market rent for this area for a very small house.

Im not sure whether I am HRP (prob just under) but object to the fact that if dual income both under won't be affected, the benefit is paid to the mother for the benefit of the child, the NI issue, that the cost of admininstering is prob more than or equal to the saving.

It will penalise single income households such as my own. Discriminating against women. Im not a particular supporter of SAHMs and have never wanted to be one (mainly because I have not wanted to ever be dependent upon a man) but this makes their already vulnerable position more so.

And lastly but not rationally because I despise the Conservatives and all they stand for.

I am not sure my TV could take the abuse...

The free 15 hr childcare for 3-4 yrs old will go next. Oh - but my poor child has to go to school when she is 4 !!

I wrote this on the other thread (there is one in AIBU as well):

"I have to say, my heart sank when I heard the announcement on CB.

we are a higher earning household (dh works, i don't - I care for dd1, who is severely ASD)

yes, dh's wage slips show a decent salary.

in the past 3 years we have:

had to move house twice, chasing appropriate schooling for dd1. our current rent (we have to live where we do, again because of dd1's schooling) is triple what our mortgage was before we had to move. we still own (hah! the bank does, inreality) our house, which is rented out - it covers it's mortgage and management fees, but of course our outgoings have tripled.

we have paid: £30k the first year for dd1's ASD pre-school; £50k last year for her schooling, plus

Ed Psych fees, legal fees to take the LA to court, private OT (none provided for pre-schoolers, none provided for children with no gross motor delays, none provided for children who don't have a physical disability - the list of excuses changes every time you ask) - this costs £100 per hour, dd1 goes weekly. Tbh, the list goes on as to what we have paid out for dd1 to just get a suitable education.

currently, the LA are paying her fees (we won the legal fight), but her statement is up for review in December, as it will be annually, and no doubt we will have to fight again. I expect there will be further years where we pay her fees, while we fight to keep her in the only school which has enabled her to learn.

I am bloody grateful that we can afford all this, but of course the money is not just sitting htere - it all has to be budgeted for.

and, when the bills all come in at once, there has been many a time when the CB is what has been used to put food on the table, and clothes on our backs.

so, we are to lose CB. but I notice that we are not guaranteed to never have to pay out like we have had to do so far for dd1.

life sucks, sometimes."

I agree with Lenin on this too - there is no way my general stauts should be dependent on what dh earns, or doesn't earn.

We are married, not joined at the hip.

There is precious little chance of me being able to earn anything at all in the next few years - caring puts paid to that (and there is an interesting question mark over Carer's allowance too - looks like it might be lumped in as part of the Universal Credit thing, which means many would lose that too)

gaelic I don't have a contract mobile phone or sky tv and luckily our holiday was a freebie.

Dh only just earns over the £44k threshold. After paying the mortgage (2 up 2 down) and commuting costs we are left with £400 to cover the bills and food. Each month we run out of money and use the child benefit to cover costs I use the remainder to buy pressies, I have already started my xmas shopping and have bought discount books and big things from carboot sales.

I suppose the alternative would be for dh to take a paycut so his earnings are just below the threshold. Might be worth investigating.

Very true Big mouth. CB is a nod towards the idea that you might pay shedloads of tax all your life, but when you are raising children, the burden is slightly less.

The basic problem with this move (and why it is sooooo silly) is that it hits people on not very high incomes disproportionately. £44K to support 4 people, as is highly likely in the child bearing years, really is not a lot of money. Why not raise income tax slightly to spread the burden over more people and stop child benefit for those paying 50% tax? Why not lower the 50% tax band?

I do not believe that there are not fairer ways to raise money. I do believe that the Conservatives are terrified of raising taxes. (As are all politicians, to be fair).

STOP THE PRESS "Tories make unfair cuts and people are surprised"

Where's the story? I can't believe people didn't expect this to happen.
Of course it's unfair but so are the Tories. Women and children first for the cuts, how gallant!

I've always seen child benefit, which was orinigally called family Allowance, as an allowance that appreciates that adults who choose to have children will incur greater costs than those who do not have children, regardless of what your income actually is as a family.

DP earns just over 45K a year, we have four children so will lose over 3K a year.

We live in Scotland and have a reasonable mortgage on a 3 bed house (are looking to extend using a small inheritance).

We do have two cars though, one 7 years old, one 5 years old, one is needed so DP can go to work. One small UK holiday a year. No private school, no foreign holidays.

We do not smoke or drink or go out. Everything is spent on the DCs.

Childcare costs means I cannot afford to work (and yes we chose to have 4 children), everyone I know who has 2 parents working has childcare from a family member, we don't have this option.

I really do not feel well off and am in tears at the thought of losing this money.

FGS - I REFUSE to sacrifice my child benefit and yet see it sent to someone's children who are in Poland .

I thought of that as well what about people who Stay at Home to look after disabled children, who cannot go to work?

lol gramercy. You can almost see the Daily Mail headline tomorrow!

I bet they would have made more if they'd simply asked HRT to not claim it (I know plenty still would have done but I bet the net gain from those who didn't claim would make more money than the net gain after trying to administrate all of this and taking account of the fact that HMRC would have screwed it up!)

Oh I agree Unfit mother - not surprised at all - you get what you not me !! vote for - just pissed off.

DH and I earn roughly equal amounts, both under HRT threshold so will be OK.
DSis has 5 children, some pre-school and is a SAHM, her DH is a HRT payer - just, so she will lose out.
The only thing that is remotely fair about this is she voted Tory, I didn't.
Seriously though, it sucks!

unfitmother

I wish I was on crack!

If you must know dh brings home £2,100 a month, our mortgage is £1,100 a month and he has commuting costs of £600.

We have made stupid decisions we bought when property was very expensive but we can't move into rented because it isn't any cheaper and we don't have much equity in the house to cover costs.

He took a job far away from home to gain good experience he never intended to stay there forever but unfortunately the recession took hold.

He pays quite a lot of tax thats why his take home pay is less than you might expect because he has a company car. It would cost the same for him to catch the train to work instead of driving and he would pay less tax but unfortunately he needs lots of surverying equipment etc so it wouldn't be viable.

thedollshouse - at the margin a tax payer who earns £44001 will effectively being charged marginal rate of tax of something like 10,000,000% because the extra £1 they earn will lose them several thousand in CB.

A Chancellors should know that putting knife edge structures in the tax/benefit system like this proposal cause ridiculous outcomes.

Its teh sam eissu ethat occurs with Stamp Duty on houses suddenly jumping at certain threshold levels of price so no house sells for just over the threshold price. In teh same way no one wil accpet a pay rise that pushes them just over the threshold but push for a wage rise that compensates them for loss of CB or just work less hours.

Lenin I'm in the same boat as your dp - but my understanding is I could claim CB regardless of dh's income. But if he's a higher rate tax paydr - he has to declare it on his tax return (and it will be deducted, in total, from him).