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!

Family X have two children, both parents work and Grandma provides the childcare, they earn 88K a year, they receive CTC and CB.

Family Y have two children and only the father works, they earn 45K a year, they get nothing.

Where is this fair at all?

There needs to be a lot more though put into childcare.

DS3 and ds1 will need it until they are 16 and fall under adult services. Most children in ds1's class now go to teh aprk for an hour until their mum gets home.

Address that, and people will get back to work through choice.

Oh forgot Family 3, Single mother who has worked very hard and is paying off student loans etc making 50K a year and has a load of childcare to pay from that, still gets nothing.

It's an arse, DH is on higher tax. So in theory a person who is the sole income provider is penalised if they earn £45k, but a family with a joint income of £80k will still get child benefit!!

abouteve - most people spend to their limits, just look at footballers' wives etc.

So, generally the more you got, the more you spend. We have a HUGE GREAT BIG mortgage, so over hald DHs' salary goes on just the mortgage, despite not living in a MASSIVE mansion (SE house prices...)

YES, we could have moved to a smaller house, but wanted the investment for our future / pension.

Now with the recession no-one is buying houses, we're tied in with a fixed rate mortgage (we are risk averse people) so the costs can't go down, plus we're in negative equity anyway so would be in a lose lose situation if we did try and downsize (the best way to save money)

We are screwed, CB keeps us in the black each month as bigger house = more bills, including council tax (which is totally fair) - unless I can get a job over the next couple of years, unlikely as I work in education and the likelyhood of a recruitement drive over the next few years is slim to insignificant.

Also - think about the amount of tax that you pay. For every £1.00 you earn over the higher threshold, you only get to keep 60p, minus the National Insurance, minus any pensionable contributions, which most higher earners make. This is why we need to start discussing WEALTH in terms of NET income, not GROSS income, as GROSS income is very, very misleading...

Plus we need to look at the MODE wage, not the AVERAGE (MEAN) wage, which is often skewed by VERY high earners (eg the premier league footballers...)

Will be interesting to see how much applications for flexible working increase by.

If you are just over HRT threshold may aswell apply for every fri pm off lose a few hours pay but keep CB.

This may well have been said earlier on the thread for which I apologise but surely redefining child benefit so it is payable for a lesser amount of years would be more sensible, and fair?

The early years are when childcare costs are highest. It is childcare costs which so often mean mothers are unable to afford to go back into the workplace (and therefore be paying tax) even if they wanted to.

So it would make greater economic sense to support more women to be financially able to work in the early years, but tapering CB as children get into their school years. Or have I got this completely wrong?

bb99 absolutely agree; it has to help those who need it and reward those who are successful as well.

But are there better ways of doing it than via the TC system?

I mean i hpsitals and schools were good enough that better off people didn;t feel they needed to pay silly money to send their child privaye (ewanting being different to a sense fo need after all)?

Does it have to be as blatantly financial as cash in hand?

CCL if there was a caveat for disabled kids who always need childcare (and assessed by recipt of DLA rather than some random social services visitor) then I would agree absolutely.

I only earn at maximum £6000 from CM and cleaning per year, but DH earns just over £44,000.

I've already told him that if he wants the kids savings to carry on, he will have to start paying it from 2013.

We don't have a joint account and I'm usually always in the red and have to 'ask' him for money.

He won't just do a standing order into my account

bb99.....goodness, free milk....not here (Northern Ireland)...our children have milk at school (primary), but we have to send in a cheque each term to cover the cost....think it works out at about 75p per child per week.

Reform of CB is long overdue...but reform should be appropriate and fair....so far, it doesn't look as if it will be.

Would be interesting to see how he calculates it, yes, given that "average household income" will include lots of single-person households (I read the other day that it's projected that 1 in 5 people born the same year as me will never have children at all).

I'm one Eve - once rent, utilities and council tax have been paid not much change out of 2K.

As I said I qualify for a small amount of hb so that must mean there is some official recognition that whilst my income looks good on paper it actually isn't.

And I top up rent slightly as hb is based on 2 beds (weekly HA of #240) whilst I live in 3 beds with tiny boxroom for ds2.

I have considered moving to 2 bed and I would do without. Once DS1 hits 16 we are considered eligible for 3 bed but they would prob kill each other if they shared.

Of course, that would need to be a caveat for sure.

Is this idea a complete nightmare administration wise? I wonder if they looked at it and discarded it? Would be VERY interested to know.

I may write to my MP...

I emailed my MP.

This amounts to a 5% tax increase for our family as we currently stand.

I would encourage everyone to write to their MP's. Join a political party. Make your voice heard. If enough people do it they can have influence.

should add that we will never qualify for social housing though but the local housing allowance for hb is based on their rules for how many beds you are entitled to and at what age.

Note to self...read the whole thread. At least we have two years before it comes into force.

The idea is that a HR taxpayer ticks the box to say that someone in the household claims CB for x children. Then it gets clawed back thro the tax system. However, GO wants people to stop claining it. He also says there will be checks on this 'honesty box'. PAYE codes will be adjusted to collect at source if the household is claiming.
If you then extended this to household income, rather than individual HR tax payers, you would need to means test. BR tax payers don't usually complete tax returns, so no box to tick.
In fact, how, unless you do a Tax Return, how will they know about HR tax payer's spouse's earnings? (DH does a tax return). Someone earnig 60k, no tax return, who is going t know if s/he is married/ has children?
I think this is going to be a very slapdash, resentment engineering thing.

butterflymum - yes free milk in some places...

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-move-swiftly-to-avoid-milksnatcher-tag-2047372.html

To quote again:

"He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "I looked at a way of doing this as simply as possible - and removing it from higher-rate taxpayers' households was the simplest way of doing it.""

...dear love him, he took the 'easy option'

That blog has given me the urge to buy gold brogues!

Going to look at it properly later.

errrrm that would be wrong thread! squirming bambimno

Maybe they're hoping that people will now rejoice when their (public sector) pay cut is announced and they are no longer a HRT payer.