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!

[HowAnnoying]

Sorry if I confused everyone by saying £37,400 I did'nt know that you added personal allowance on top of that.

So basically as the personal allowance goes up, the 40% band goes up?

[HowAnnoying]

Actually I blame the bbc news for my mistake!!

[LilyBolero]

I feel sick about this. We are going to be massively hit - we will lose £250 a month.

What is SO unfair is that a family can be earning about 40k (atm) and lose it (not going to speculate about what higher rate may or may not be, it could be LOWER if they want to raise revenue). But a family earning 70k (or a bit more) will KEEP it, because they are dual income.

SO SO SO unfair.

[CerealOffender]

ids reforms will cost more to implement than they will save in housing benefit. it makes no sense atm to do this

[scaryteacher]

The HRP stuff had been around on websites for about 6 months before the change happened. Some have special dispensations from this (note to self must sort out form for this) - ie. Forces wives abroad, as we can't work to make up our NI if we follow our husbands abroad.

Why is the up to £37k confusing Riven? You get approx £6400 tax free, then up to £37,400 at 20%, then 40% on income above that to £150,000, then 50% thereafter, so if you earned £150,000 you will have three rates of tax, and I think a withdrawal of the personal allowance.

[fembear]

I thought that MN was very lefty and believed in taxing the rich to help the poor. Why are HIGHER RATE TAXPAYERS shouting "not fair"? These people are earning 75% more than average wage, they are hardly on their uppers.
If Gordon Brown had proposed this you would all be cheering his socialist principles.

[Chil1234]

As a 'tory mumsnetter'... already a few quid down on the new CTC thresholds and now losing the CB in 2013 - being totally selfish I can say I'll miss the £120/month and I'd rather it wasn't happening. However, I will say that I'm not surprised that it's happening because paying £20/week to everyone regardless of income wasn't 'fair' by anyone's standards. There were also some pointers that it was on the cards when CB was frozen in the budget. I have long predicted that CB would be done away with entirelyand an income-related CTC (or the Universal Benefit or whatever we get) would take over. Meaning that low-income families get help and high-income families don't... which is fair

We've got a couple of years to adjust to our new disposable income levels and cut our cloth accordingly. At least we still have incomes... some at the end of this process won't even have that.

[ANTagony]

So I've just worked out if my DH drops to 4.5 days we roughly work out better off! Poor bloke married me last year took on and is fantastic with my 2 DS (elder is autistic so no easy ride) we've lost maintenance from their natural father because of his job situation now I'm pregnant with no.3 and we're to loose child benefit x 3 on top of maintenance x 2 and tax credit. We're not rolling in it, the morgage was manageable on our previous income but now I'm at a loss and emotional enough as it is. DS1's challenging behaviour means childcare is not an option and its not practical for me to work - I had to give up my own business that I thought was flexible enough because of all the specialist appointments (physio, psychiatrists, occupational therapy, speech therapy, language /social therapy) and forever being called into school because of incidents. The local nursery were very good but didn't feel they could handle him under normal supervision rates.

Why have they decided that this is such a definitive cut off point for everything?

[NoahAndTheWhale]

I think having George Osbourne here for a live chat would be great fun. Can we? Please?

[MarshaBrady]

Someone on R4 said why should the mc be paid to have children.

They should go further, why should anyone be paid to have children

[HowAnnoying]

and according to this he is reducing the HRT threshold by £2,500 next year!!

[MumInBeds]

They said when they announced the gradual rise of personal allowance to £10k they would lower the HRT threshold so only those in the basic band would benefit.

[LilyBolero]

the reason it's unfair fembear is because there is a 'hole' in the middle. So you can earn less than it or more than it (up to a point), but lots of people will fall RIGHT INTO IT. And so people who are far far better off will retain the child benefit, but people who can barely afford to lose it will have it snatched away.

If you have a household income of 40k, despite it being above average salary, for a household you are BELOW AVERAGE earnings, because average salary is about 22k, and in order for that to BE the average, you assume a household has a dual income - you assume the average salary is applied to all adults.

[MissAnneElk]

This is really very poorly thought out. A family with one person earning £45K will receive no child benefit but a family with an evenly split joint income of £86K will still receive it. The family with the joint income of £86K could also additionally receive maintenance from an absent parent if they have children from a previous relationship.
They are going to do it this way so that they save administration costs but it leaves some very unfair anomalies.

[bb99]

Librashavinganotherbiscuit - thank you for the concrete example.

So many of our friends are on dual incomes and don't understand WHY we are not better off on just my DH's salary. They all seem to have a LOT more spending money than us each month...

We are absolutely screwed.

The CB keeps us in the black each month - growing family (hopefully arriving in January) and looking forward to Public Sector worker pay cuts....plus HUGE fixed rate mortgage...

Success has never paid so badly.

Honestly we would be better off getting a divorce and me (a husband dependant) signing up for income support.

Why bother?

I would LOVE to be able to give my husband my personal tax allowance so he could earn £12,00 (or there abouts) before getting on the tax ladder. That would MORE than make up for the CB - as I and the kids are completely dependant on him it seems fair.

Reason I gave up FT work was the crippling child care costs that (because of our dual income) we never got any help with anyway.

Thank you government for being so supportive of families.

[Ineedmorechocolatenow]

I feel like I've woken up into a nightmare....

FFS

[longfingernails]

Yes, fembear, this is a very redistributive change (I refuse the use the word "progressive" to mean redistributive).

This change will hit the relatively rich in order to help the very poor. I would have thought the Mumsnet/Guardian nexus would be delighted.

It turns out that, far from enjoying paying their taxes, MNers want other people to lose out, just like everyone else.

[poppyknot]

In the interview on Radio 4 Geo. Osborne said that that the average salary of a higher rate taxpayer was £70,000 (so it's all right then..........)

What sort of average is this? From my maths of long ago I know that you have the mode the median and the mean. With income, the mean which is the most common;y used 'average' can be skewed by huge incomes at the higher end. I don't know the stats on this but my gut feeling is that there will be a lot of people on £44,000 - £50,000.

[notyummy]

I will start my post by saying that I am not a Tory mumsnetter!

If - and I emphasis the 'IF' - this is part of a wider package of cuts that involve a wide sector of society 'taking the pain', then I suppose I can see the logic behind it. It will hit us (although less then some as we only have one child.)

There has to be some method of bringing down the deficit. It is going to be grim, and it is unlikely that there will be a single household that does not see their income cut in some way. I am public sector worker, and will almost certainly be made redundant within the next 6 months (we have been told our office is closing, but not actually been told when.)

[NoahAndTheWhale]

fembear rightly or wrongly I can't help feeling that if my DH earned an extra £75 a year gross (which would take him into the higher rate tax band) that if that meant losing child benefit of £33.70 a week (net) meaning a loss of more than £1,750 that it feels a little unfair somehow. Especially if people could earn more in total and not lose it.

I do realise that there needs to be a cut off point somewhere. But annoying little quotes like "we're all in this together" are not helpful.

Am interested in the admin costs there will be for this and what the total proposed savings are.

[becaroo]

If he says "we are all in this together" once more I may actually vomit

[MarshaBrady]

I don't begrudge tax. Hospitals, nhs, schools, housing -great. The principle of this grates, yes.