And now they're introducing a tax break for married couples!

[LadyBiscuit]

So not only do higher earning lone parents not get CB when the couple next door will still be eligible, they will also get a tax reward for being married.

BBC story

They really don't like single parents do they?

I had children within marriage - having children wasn't a good thing - the marriage turned out not to be.

So - who wants to be that the marriage rate and then the divorce rates will soar

I'm married and not at all affected by anything thus far. Don't like it at all though.

DH has had a 2yr pay freeze though. And they're facing terrible, terrible cuts at work. He's already working a 75hr week and getting paid for 37hrs. It's making him ill. And it's going to get worse. I almost don't care about the money/freeze. I do care that as a public sector worker, he's paying very dearly indeed for what's happening atm. He isn't sleeping or eating properly and is so tired he almost crashed the car today.

catinthehat2

I do agree although it's open to abuse in that couples could potentially choose who to assess it on.

High earning partner or stay at home partner ? Plenty of wriggle room there. Any higher earner with a stay at home spouse would instantly declare it was the stay at home spouse's income thereby avoiding the tax wheras the couple both working but only paying basic rate tax would lose out in comparison.

Plus, it would potentially require huge amounts of people to be required to complete a tax return/form of some sort to declare the additional income, increasing administration costs to check/process.

It would probably be a small increase in the personal allowance of a married person rather than an unmarried one. I don't actually buy the logic that giving something to married people is necessarily an 'attack' on the unmarried or single any more than giving someone with a child an allowance is an attack on the childless. If it's social engineering they're after, I don't think tax allowances are going to make people stay together or get together in the first place. I'm not convinced this one will make it as far as 2015... :)

Chil I suspect you're right about the longevity of this one...

It's like a big red button marked "push here for instant outrage" for me though

swc links to your supporting data please?

Foggy

Can I refer you to the previous answer from CatintheHat2:
"And if you think that BBC News story was a tax announcement, it wasn't actually.

You'll find it was a panic stricken kneejerk release to the media to take pressure off some people in the Treasury who now look like complete fools"

i don't want a tax break for being married
I would rather they used the money for something more useful like, erm, not decimating public services

Sitdown -

I can't think of any income I receive which is assessed on my DH.

No idea why this should be any different vis a vis CB

It's not exactly goign to be ripe for aviodance schemes from KPMG though is it?

Basically, the sensible thing would be to tax it at the highest rate of the receiver, whihc in most cases would be the mother, and in most cases the lowest rated taxpayer.

No bureaucracy - pay it net of BR tax.

But in most cases everybody will pay something unless they are out of the tax net altogether, hence Gideon would collect his cash.

At present, the marginal rate - caused by the CB cut, not by a tax increase obv. - for someone earning £44,001 does not bear thinking about

You know the tax break is worth somewhere around £150. A year.
Its social engineering. Maybe we will all get a tenner if we become scientologists too.

Is it me or is this getting really complicated? I think that they don't know what they are doing and are just shout out random things.

First they announce CB cut for high earners, then the realise that one income families are hit disproportionally so promise a tax break for being married. By tomorrow afternoon, it will dawn on them that some people aren't married, so they will probably introduce a 'happy to be single tax break'.

I'm watching this with a mixture of amusement and horror to see what they a going to propose next. Although, it's pretty safe to say that no-one will be better off from all of this.

No it's not just you.

CB announcement - ill thought out & plain stupid

TReasury look like fools

New announcement - er vague tax breaky thing for people, don't ask the details, we've told Nick Robinson so it takes the pressure off us re CB

TReasury look like fools

New new announcement - er something else, probably terror threat up to Fluorescent Red

Treasury still look like fools but nation's attention is directed elsewhere

You do get a sense that they were given more credit than they deserved to run the country. They are floundering about to the point where conspiracy theories look viable. What are the lib dems saying anyway?

I think the tax break for married couples was an election pledge. It's been brought out now to try to appease conference, I suspect (lots of grumpy 'did he mean me, Jocasta?' faces there yesterday). Kicking it into 2015 is the political 'long grass'.

I would rather they use my £150 for free fruit in school. Bedsides, isn't this going to cost a fortune administer?

This is just them backtracking after their CB plans were hated to avoid the middle classes voting them out!

nymphadora, I'm sorry. It's rubbish. This is all dh has ever wanted to do and he waited 2 years for a start date. Two and a half years into the job, he's utterly exhausted. He loves his job. But he's not able to do it atm. It's such a shame. And they signed away their right to strike for a reason. They're buggered quite frankly.

150 quid in return for losing cb forever seems like a crap deal to me.

i think the tories are creating v socially devisive policies. what we will end up with is huge resentment because it seems like if you work and get ahead career/cash wise and pay lots of tax you get eff all in return. i don't begrudge anyone benefits but it makes me cross that all the incentives to work are being eroded.

dh earns over the cb threshold already and i suppose we could afford for me to stay at home but i am going back to work soon for self fulfiullment/career advancement/independence/contribute to our family life etc etc part time - but there is no incentive/tax break/not sure we will even get tax credits/whatever out there for me. ho hum.

Great so as an unmarried couple we're loosing our:-

child benefit
tax credits
water capping

and will now be missing out on this.

How can this be described as fair?

"Treasury look like fools"

lets face it, with a twat like George Osborne in place they were always going to look like fools.

I hope there are a few resignations as a result of this, specially from the Lib-dems. Maybe Vince Cable?

Well I like the policy even though its a nominal amount - I think marriage / civil partnerships should be supported with tax breaks.

I also agree with removing the child benefit but think it should be based on household income and not sole income

probably repeating what has been said here, but in a hurry...No, they do not like lone parents. They never did and never will.

As I have said SO MANY times on here, IDS actually said on his website prior to changing it that single parents and child tax benefits will "Lead the country down the road to hell". No one seems/seemed to give a flying wotsit about the fact he even had the audacity to say such a brutal thing.

People on here-mothers themselves, [mums who may even wake up tomorrow to find themselves a lone parent for all they know] even hate lone parents and use derogitaory language towards/about them. Non one is interested in the real facts about LP's and when they read them they say it must be lies...even government facts about LP's!!!!!!

Right now, I could frog march my two perfect innocent chuildren who I have brought up on my own, right up to Cammerons multi millionaire house and ask him...
just why do my children have to be treated so differently to yours? Why should they put up with this? Why should they not be as equal as their friends with two married parents and treated as such? JUST WHY?

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooo cross.