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!

MuminBeds that is a little better..I guess.

So the HRT payer will have to state that someone in the household recieves CB for x amount of children and then it will be taken from their salary?

Its madness that a couple who both earn but just below the higher rate tax band and have say a combined income of £75k will still get CB but where one person in a couple earn say £45k then they will lose CB. The couple who work also get two tax free personal allowances and lower rate tax bands as well.

This really has not been thought out. What a mess. It is going to hit lower middle income Tory swing voters hard. The politics and the economics of this is all wrong.

My husband has said that his NI contributions will pay for my state pension anyway although he is 100% certain. He gets £52,000 a year

Anyone know if this is true?

GO said the higher rate tax payer would you to 'tick a box' to say the household cliamed CB.

Radio 4 asked 'So it's an hoesty box?'

GO- 'Oh, but we will be able to cross check.'

Really? The adimin for means testing would be expensive but this 'cross-checking' will not be cheap either. If they are to get it right...........

telsa I am guessing this isn't for deficit reduction - this is to help fund the Iain Duncan Smith welfare reforms - which genuinely aim to help those who have been out of work longest. Although you might quibble with the implementation details of the universal credit, I don't think there is anyone who doesn't believe that Iain Duncan Smith is absolutely genuine about trying to help.

And in any case, they aren't Tory cuts - they are Labour cuts. They aren't "Tory cuts" till they pass the Darling 20% number - we are still a long, long way off. The Osborne cuts are the extra 5% which take them to 25%.

Honesty box.

That is good that the NI aspect will be retained - that would have been the biggest loss in terms of lost pension.

I would love to know how much the govt are actually going to save by moving from universal CB to means tested to CB, it's going to be peanuts.

Conkie - I think pensions are now independent as well. I was always cross that I could claim mine at 60 (before the rules changed) for three weeks before dh turned 65 and then I'd lose all my entitlement to pension based on my NICs as my pension was dependent upon him.

Now I have to have 30 years contribution to get full pension, and when I asked I was told my pension would be based on my contributions, nothing to do with his any more. May be worth ringing and asking?

conkie your husband is wrong.

Does make me wonder about working. I work full time and have stonkingly high childcare costs as I need to cover both ends of the day plus holidays (5 weeks doesn't go far by the time I've taken half days off to attend school functions - no one to share the attendance so am adversely affected by that too).

Have to say if the government extended parental leave beyond 5 yrs of age I'd be tempted to add on a couple of weeks unpaid leave every year to bring me under the HRT bracket.

That actual loss of CB adds up to £1,040 which of course is tax free. It helps me pay for things for ds that I might otherwise not be able to afford. That combined with the increased NI means I'm actually have a lower household income than I had 5 years ago.

'I don't think there is anyone who doesn't believe that Iain Duncan Smith is absolutely genuine about trying to help.'
I, for one, don't believe that the millionaire IDS is genuinely trying to help - if he ere, he wouldn't be a Tory capitalist.

riven - that's the point, it isn't means tested. It is a crude cut off that ignores the fact that a family can have TWO incomes or ONE, and treating them the same.

Did you see the point about the average incomes earlier?

ouch

Where are you supposed to tick this box? I don't get a tax return. Will they be sending out a separate form? Doubly

"It's madness that a couple who both earn but just below the higher rate tax band and have say a combined income of £75k will still get CB but where one person in a couple earn say £45k then they will lose CB."

I'm not so sure about that. I would quite like a world that encouraged men and women to earn equal amounts instead of him being The WageEarner and the little woman being stuck at home in her pinny.

The mad thing about this is that CB is a Universal Benefit everyone gets without means testing. The Coalition have been talking about implementing a Universal Benefit for years and IDS is pushing hard to get it done but now Osborne goes and takes away a well accepted and supported Universal Benefit in the form of CB.

What SuzieHomemaker said about the middle class being a lot more hard nosed about people on benefits after this is dead right. That is exactly what will happen.

Implementing a proper Universal Benefit system supported by the entire population would have created a popular and well supported revolution in this country and we seem to be going in exactly the opposite direction.

I hope David Cameron gets involved and bangs some heads together. This sounds like Treasury making policy on the fly without thinking about the impact across other departments. It is not about the level of benefits (I am happy enough to lose CB) but its the confused set of principles that bother me.

This YouTube clip made me smile before the election but it all seems a bit scarily accurate now:

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Warning for those with dc about - contains swearing!

I wonder if they will then allow the SAH partner to transfer their tax free allowance to the working partner, if they are basing this on household income to make it fairer.

They don't (in theory) know my household income, as we are taxed separately.

R5Live said it was where anyone in the household earned over £44,000 so if you have two people earning £40,000 each they would still be entitled to claim CB. Really doesn't add up at all. If it isn't done on household income then all it is doing is pandering to the Tory/Lib Dem vote imo.

Child benifit was always about the child not the parents - the tory goveremtn hae just abolished chidl benifit and made it parent benifit for those parents earning under £44k

BYE bye child benifit and hello parnets benifit on chidlren

IDShas been working and co-authoring books with Graham Allen, Labour MP for one of the most deprived constituencies in the UK. Basically his ideas are all around early intervention, and restructuring the system to allow more money and support to be put into helping the most dyfunctional and chaotic households to stop the children of these households going on to be offenders/addicts/long term unemployed and hence being a burden on the state (and obviously ruining their lives..) There is a LOT more to it than that, but the Centre for Social Justice website contains much of their thinking.

Yes, IDS is rich - but I don't think his proposed reforms are just bout protecting the wealthy.

this suggests average mean earnings £489/wk in 2009 489x52=£25,428 or an average household income assuming two working parents of £50,856.

So this is talking of taking a benefit from below average earning households?