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!

So, dh earns over the threshold, and I earn very little. We will lose CB.

Yet, another household with two people earning the same as us, but distributed differently, will not lose.

That is inherently UNFAIR.

I agree with others who say that universal benefits can't continue, but I want this to be done fairly!

It will not really bother us but TBH if the CB goes but I am beginnng to get the feeling that he 'cuts' are going to be implemented in a piecemeal way with bits nibbeled off here rather than a really coherent strategy of reforming tax and benefits.

This is going to be a massive missed opportunity and just waste a lot of political capital.

Yes that's right just because I'm angry about them taking away CB from HRT payers it must automatically mean I'm not angry about the poorest in our country having cuts.

It's quite easy to be angry about both.

Mumi It's trivial for a pensioner to "opt-out" of paying for buses and trains.

They can just buy a ticket, like everyone else.

The trouble is, why would you? It's not rational. Why pay more to the train companies, or in tax, if you don't have to?

I know I'm just repeating what everyone else is saying but,

So a dual earning family earning £80k keep it, a single earning family earning £45k, don't?

They will make a simple benefit expensive and open to abuse

What about the NI contribution aspect of it?

The man is a bigger idiot than he looks.

Actually, when I think about it, perhaps it is the the NI contribution is where the real money is going to be saved. I don't know how much it costs, but I bet it is a huge hidden cost of the benefit.

swallowedAfly that's my thought (wish I earned £80,000!). I'm just into the 40% bracket so will be adversely affected but will now have no relief for childcare costs at all.

MaryBS - yes, I am planning to write to my MP and to GO and suggest that everyone else who thinks this is unfair does the same. While I absolutely agree that there needs to be cuts to get the country out of the mess it is in I just can't see this as fair. There must be some way of taking disposable income or at least childcare costs into account in all of this. On the face of it our joint income after tax is fairly rosy, but when you take off the over £600 a month that we currently pay for childcare (and the £870 we pay for the mortgage (on our not very exciting 3 bedroom house)) then actually our disposable income is probably less than for some families where the notional income is much less. I worked out recently that even if we sold our house and moved into rented accomodation we still couldn't survive on just DHs salary (just within the HRT band as it is) as we wouldn't get any CTC. That can't be fair either. There are people in this country not paying their fair share and it's not the middle income families that this will hit.

I have had a feeling that this was on the cards for a while now.

Probably in the end it makes sense but it does feel like middle class exclusion. All we are allowed to do in this society is pay for everything. Once this goes through I can see that the middle classes are going to become a lot more hard-nosed about benefits for others.

Well the tories have never been known for their love of single parents, I remember being a kid to a single mother in the eighties, we were classed as the SCUM of the earth.

Sad to see how difficult this will be for so many.

But as a Labour-voting higher rate tax paypayer (both me and my husband) I have to say I think for me at least stopping universal CB is only fair. I earn well over the threshhold they are talking about and it seems wrong that I receive over £40 a week tax free at a time when vital services are being cut, disability benefits slashed etc etc. I've had my share of financial pain with massive increases in my tax bill imposed by that awful Gordon Brown so of course I'd rather not lose CB (and I always rather liked the fact the State was prepared to do something for me purely because I had children) but I really couldn't look many Mumsnetters in the eye and say I personally should still get CB. After a year or so on here I often find myself thinking about government cuts in terms of 'what would this do to Riven and people like her?' so if this means she gets a bit more support because I lose out am cool with that.

I do hope however they will refine their thinking to make this more equitable - sounds like early thinking is a bit muddled.

It looks like CB will still be paid to the person claiming it for the child but it will be taken back in tax from the HRT payer.

This seems a small point but means that:

*it is possible that CB will be taken back proportional to the amount into that band the HRT payer is, up to the full CB amount.

*That the main carer will still get the money in their hand in the case of relationships where the money is not regarded as 'ours'.

*HRP can still be applied to a non-working parent claiming the CB.

Yes Riven - think about it. An average is calculated by taking the total amount of salary divided by the number of people. So you can then assume that every person earns the average salary. So in a household with TWO people, you can assume they have 2x the average salary, ie 46k (and remember the 44k figure is George Osbourne speculating, atm the threshold is lower than that, which magnifies the discrepancy).

The household with a single income of 40k is ALREADY hit for more tax than a household with a dual income of 2x 20k.

LostArt that seems to be how it will work. As a single parent on a reasonably good income I may be better off cutting my hours and claiming benefits. Surely that isn't what a Tory government would want me to do? very

Well, you can justify paying CB universally if the overall cost is less than means-testing it, which is what we've always been told before. Now they are getting round that by having a cheaper box-ticking exercise rather than proper means testing. This means that some families with a family income of £80K will still get child benefit, whereas other families with a family income of £45K won't. And we are supposed to be happy because this is redistributing money from rich to poor? Hmm.

And there's the NI thing which I doubt he's even thought about (it's the bit I'm most worried about, though -- I will probably give up work when we have DC3 because of childcare costs, and was happy that my NI contributions would be covered until DC3 got to 12. Now, apparently, because DH earns over the HRT threshold I (who never have) will wind up with a big hole in my NI contributions. Marvellous. )

I know that this is terrible news for some but I agree with it in principle.
The idea is right the threshold is wrong imo

Of course a two income household has two lots of personal allowance but not necessarily double the expenditure of a single income household.

yy to National INsurance payments

I am not happy about this at all. My husband earns more than the £44,000 a year and I am a SAHM. The thing I don't get is how can he justify stopping it for 1 person earning it but 2 peole earning just under the band could make thousands more and still get it. It is absurd. If they are going to do it then they must stop joint incomes earning more than the £44,0000 as well.

Why not pay it to families where someone has worked/or is working & paid tax.

But it is not the poor who will benefit - everyone is being slashed. Look at Local Housing Allowance. Look at cutting Sure Start centres. Look at schools, youth clubs, domestic violence units, arts groups. etc etc. Don't present this as redistribution. It is definitely not. It is Tory cuts as we have always known them.

HRP = NI. It does look like HRP/NI could still be secured for a non-working/low income parent with a higher income partner.