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!

gramercy - I totaly agree with you and others about pensioners. If we are going to have a cap on benefits and CB being cut then we need to take a long hard look at what pensioners are getting.

My PILs and my parents just dont seem to get it. My PILs have been on 4 holidays this year! My parents live in a 6 bedroom house! They dont even think they are wealthy.

Round where I live pensioners who largely worked in high end public sector jobs (eg doctor, council leader, headmaster, live in £750k houses while collecting index linked public sector pensions.

They did not contribute to teh ensions they get an dthey did ot earn teh money to buy their hosues, they got Mortgage Interest Tax Relief and inflation in house prices did the rest. They paid nowhere near enough tax on any of their housing wealth or pension contributions.

It but it really has to stop.

I agree that if we are means testing everything now, then we have to look at the pensioners. As I said earlier, the pension burden is FAR higher than that of all the other benefits.

Yes they have worked all their life for it, however some things were a LOt easier for them. My gran was able to remortgage her house on chambermaids wages because she was able to get a mortgage from the council with preferred rates.

But i will bet you a pound that the pension pot will remain untouched.

Sancti - Did I say that? No, I was giving an example.

Agree with Chinghehuang.

It seems the new definition of benefit scrounger is... the SAHM.

Pah. It's bad enough having to mumble to people that you're a housewife or whatever at the best of times, now I've been exposed as a scrounger and my benefits are being ripped away. I'll be appearing in Take A Break soon, with a grainy picture of dh in the corner, the rotter who dared to earn £45K.

I have an elderly relative with nearly £1m in the bank (she told me) who delights in her winter fuel allowance!! Immoral.

Ugh, am quite pissed off about this. I do like working but after paying £700 a month for 3 days a week childcare (I'm in London) and £105 a month for a travelcard to get to work and now losing my CB I do think what is the point? And I bloody resent that. I know that DP works and earns over £44k but I want to work too.

I think this change to CB should have been brought in with much wider reform to women and work e.g. affordable childcare (in some scandanavian countries childcare costs are capped at a max % of income), action to change the ridiculous long hours culture at work and decent paternity benefits.

Scandinavian countries have a fantastic standard of living. Very cheap, flexible, quality childcare and very family friendly work practices. Sadly I don't think the UK will ever follow suit as they also have very high taxation to pay for it. We seen to be heading the way of the US instead.....

But not all pensioners. My father still works f/t at 73 thanks to the raid on pensions by GB.

On a happier note, MIL has been on the phone to say that she and FIL will give us the equivalent of CB if we need it . She is so lovely.

MIL has just written to her MP to say that the govt should be looking to get some cash of people like her and FIL and their friends who retired at 55 on full final salary pensions, have a mortgage free 500k house and next to no outgoings.

Go MIL!!

Go MrToads MIL!!

More argument than ever to move to a single tax code for a household rather than taxing people as individuals.

It was the TORIES who introduced taxation on individuals back in 1988.

Is anyone else totally depressed here?

This might effect how many children I can have.

[just to balance things with pensioners and not be too divisive, some of the things my parents and IL's have faced have been evacuation, risk of childhood polio (swimming baths abandoned for a year), parents disappearing for years because of TB, air raids and years and years of rationing. (I could include all pasta being made by Heinz and no ipods, but those comparisons would expose me as a middle class HRT type).

Had they gone to university, it would have been free, but as hardly anybody (including my parents) went to university, that didn't do them much good.]

Haven't read the whole threat so this may have been mentioned before.... but here is a direct quote from the v same Mr Osborne from Oct 6th, 2009.

"Along with our reforms to incapacity benefit, we also have to take a realistic look at the benefits the rest of society receives.
We will preserve child benefit, winter fuel payments and free TV licenses. They are valued by millions."

He was right... they are valued by millions. What a difference a year and being in power makes. Where are you Liberal Democrats? Speak up!!!! They can't do it without you.

Good heavens, Mr Toad, your mil's generosity is more astonishing than the axing of the child benefit!

I think my pil would sooner throw themselves on their brightly-burning winter fuel allowance pyre than give a penny to us.

well done Justine on Sky News. Very balanced comments (ps like the shirt!).

btw, in case anyone has forgotten, National insurance goes up next year by 1%. They are adjusting the lower thresholds so it doesn't hit lower earners but yes, you've guessed it, middle and high earners!

Hope you all know that VAT is going up too in a few months?

Those wartime children (air raids etc) tend to be the more hard-up pensioners who do need, & certainly deserve, all the benefits they get.

They're a different generation from the current crop of affluent pensioners - those pesky baby boomers, in other words, many of whom did get free university etc

antagony I've been pondering that very thing. DHs ex is remarried with another 3 kids to her new DH who we assume is in the HRT. So for the DD they have between them, will she
a) come to him for more maintenance to top up what she'll lose for the DD in CB
b) will the govt take from my DH the CB and give to her the equivalent, or from her current DH
c) get a job to top up their own loss (unlikely as she has 3 younger children to care for)

There are so many odd scenarios out there, they they can't account for, and if it is true the administration will cost more than the saving/equivalent saving, what's the point? Have only skimmed thread, but does anyone know, how much exactly is spent on CB, and can we extrapolate potential savings based on % of claimants being in the higher tax bracket and losing it?

On the plus side it is quite gratifying watching the ConDems ensuring only one term in government. Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine that even they would be able to do that quite so well.

am very depressed about this. DH earns just above the threshold and I make a measly £2-3k doing an admin job at night from home. we really depend upon the £180ish we get each month for children's clothes, nappies, etc (don't get CTC).

I'm not sure how we'll cope, I'm sure we will but it's depressing nevertheless. wish we had Mr Toad's inlaws .

to avoid feeling too down, I'm just thinking about our health, roof over the head, basic food... guess we're luckier than most.

GO has preserved CB though - he has just removed it from those of us who can afford to lose it, even though we may not like it.

It's cheaper than a rise in income tax.

A few things spring to mind:

1. yes, there are anomolies in the way that this will be implemented, but i would rather that those anomolies existed then they spent a lot of money investing in a new computer system or tax system to make it "fair". Only 15% of people are higher rate taxpayers. The percentage of dual income households where combined income is say, over £60k, is actually very very small (from memory a few percentage points of UK households). If i compare the extra money that they will get (when they really shouldn't under the new system) vs the cost of implementing a means tested system, then I think the Government has actually done the most sensible thing.

1. I am surprised that people are surprised that this has happened! Given the deficit we face, it seems a sensible thing to do.

1. I am glad that it is staying for basic rate taxpayers. I think that would be one other option (which is what i thought they would do) but that really would have been throwing out the baby with the bath water.

1. I would much prefer CB to be abolished all together and then included as one calculation in a universal benefi system so that it is truly the less well off who benefit from it.

1. It would be far too expensive to implement any CB system that took into acount, disposable income (e.g. a massive mortgage should be the household problem rather than the nation's problem) or cost of living.