Child benefit cut unenforceable

[mcquade]

It has emerged that the scrapping of child benefit for upper rate taxpayers is unenforceable and the Treasury is in a flap about, having failed to consult civil servants before making its headline-grabbing announcement. Yet another mess. Full story here:

blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/10/28/child-benefit-cut-unenforceable-treasury-in-a-flap/?mod=rss_WSJBlog&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

"Perhaps the government would also like to consider an honesty box on the tax return forms of all the tax avoiders sat around the cabinet table."

Great idea

someone mentioned the extra £30 on the Tax Credits - don't forget that they've cut the child care element by 10%.......as if the extra £30 is going to cover the cut........

as for the looking at electrola registers or address searches, what about couples where the woman hasn't changed her name, or where multiple generations are living in the same household all with the same surname

This just shows how quickly they're rushing this stuff through. It's not properly thought out.

The last time such major, swinging cuts were made was in 1922, under "Geddes' Axe".

From Wikipedia "In 1921 the Anti-Waste League was formed ... to campaign against what they considered wasteful government expenditure ... In May 1921 HM Treasury sent all government departments a circular citing that in 1921?22 the cost of Supply Services would be £603 million and that this should be reduced in the next financial year ... the response was a plan to reduce this expenditure by £75 million. ... The Prime Minister David Lloyd George appointed Geddes as head of a committee in August 1921 to find where economies could be found in various government departments for 1922?23."

They spent months carefully considering the best way to go about it, and what the implications of cuts would be.

This lot are just running about like headless chickens wielding the axe wherever they like, without thinking it through.

I mean fancy not realising that CB is paid to mothers! It's their job to know things like this!

If the aim is to give child benefit to families most in need then I would scrap it and boost tax credits to make up the loss of cb to poorer families. Is there any good reason not to do that?

in their opinion yes there is a good reason to do that. they don't really want to help the poorer families. in fact, i'm not sure that they want to 'help' anyone.

i mean, yes there is a good reason they dont want to do that...

Just a thought but if you penalise the female HRT in a relationship by withdrawing the CB, but dont/ cant penalise the male HRT in a similar situation aren't you in breach of the Sex Discrimination laws?

From the Guardian, written before the election ...

"Superficially, [means-testing child benefit] has appeal. A mother receives £20 a week for the first child and £13.20 for every other child. Thus fund manager Nicola Horlick, mother of five, receives over £300 a month of taxpayers' money ? petty cash for her that probably pays for only a fraction of the household flower bill. How can that be fair?

Only if the argument is purely about benefits going to the rich; but it isn't. It's precisely because child benefit is universal and not means-tested that it lays down a marker of mutuality in society that has a value that must not be sacrificed. It says that children matter and this cash, paid to the mother, is highly likely to be spent on their welfare.

If child benefit is means-tested, it brands the family that receives it as poor. As a result, it's probable that its take-up ? at present around 98% ? would plummet. (The new child tax credit, for instance, reached only 79% of those eligible in its first year in 2003/4. Pensioners have not claimed an estimated £4.5bn of income-related benefits, while problems with the over-paying and clawing back of Working Family Tax Credit has made many reluctant to claim it.) It matters if child benefit is shunned because, for families living on little, it's a weekly anchor when their overall income fluctuates.

Child benefit has been in the battlefield many times before. In the late 1980s, it was suggested that the Conservatives would axe it, means-test it or tax it, but it was saved by a campaign. In 2002, Tony Blair suggested taking child benefit away from parents whose children were persistently truanting from school ? a ridiculous move that would have turned a benefit into a beating stick. Now, child benefit is paid for every child in education up to the age of 20.

It's hard not to conclude that if there were more women at a senior level in all three political parties, child benefit would have been locked in a secure zone long ago. The Child Poverty Action Group points out that countries with non-means-tested support for children tend to have low rates of child poverty.

We give bankers free licence to "earn" gross amounts while they return relatively little to the taxpayers' pot. Never has that message been more clearly understood by the public. Against that background, if the government does decide to stigmatise those on the lowest incomes by turning child benefit into a purse only for the poor, it may be surprised at the scale and the anger of the opposition.

Child benefit should remain universal because it tells us children count."

Link to Guardian article here

spot on article.

Reasons CB should be universal. Well, for a start ...

• it's a benefit for children and supports mothers. Giving it to everyone is the simplest way to make sure it gets to the largest amount of children, including those who will really benefit from it

• it's guaranteed income for mothers. As everyone gets it, you don't need to wait for a claim to be processed. This helps people in very practical terms. If you suddenly loose you income - through loosing your job / relationship breakdown / escaping domestic violence, you at least have CB as an emergency fall back while you get yourself sorted. Even rich women can find themselves on the run form DV. It's a safety net for everybody

• It's cheap to administer if it's not means tested. Just look at the hoo-ha going on now - means-testing it is a headache!

• The rich pay more in tax and NI, so it balances out. They're not getting more money over all.

• It shows that we value mothers and children as a society, and it goes some way to providing a practical measure to ensure that women are not wholly financially dependant on men

• The Child Poverty Action Group points out that countries with non-means-tested support for children tend to have low rates of child poverty (sorry to repeat myself here!)

It really doesn't make sense to give Child Benefit to millionaires, when the national debt is about to hit £1 trillion.

But the government should admit they got it wrong. It was a neat idea but can't be done. Instead, they should roll all child benefits into the Child Tax Credit system, so that parents who need it most get the most.

familiesagainstnationaldebt; did you read lowribs last post?

But FamilliesAgainstNationalDebt it does make sense!

I'll try to explain this in easy steps:

1. You give a small benefit to all mothers
2. You tax the rich more than the poor, so you are getting the money back - the rich do not get more money overall - far from it!
3. The bill to administer this is very low
4. Everyone who needs it gets it. Those who don't pay it back in other ways. Job done.

And do you really think that if they add it to child tax credit, that the money will be safeguarded in the future?

CB is paid to mothers, no questions asked. It's an important principle. Once you've done away with this principle, and added the money to another benefit, it'll be vulnerable to no end of tinkering from future governments.

"CB is paid to mothers, no questions asked." And what happens when the father is the main carer?

Here's another good article, which might answer your point Mingg ...

"The attack on Child Benefit is an attack on women"

"George Osborne?s announcement ? that from 2013 Child Benefit payments will be axed for any family with a parent earning enough to put them in the 40-50% income tax bracket is neither ?fair? nor ?right? as some commentators would have us believe: it?s actually an attack on the basic principles of the welfare state, and it?s an attack on women.
?
Child Benefit, or Family Allowance as it used to be called, is a universal benefit, and it?s universal for a reason. ...

It?s a recognition if you like that children are valued, and that society as a whole has an obligation to support its children. It?s not, as some have said, a ?reward? for having children, it?s society?s (small) contribution to its children?s welfare.

More importantly though as far as I?m concerned is the fact that Child Benefit is the one state benefit that has nearly always gone to the mother, or at least it has since 1945, when Eleanor Rathbone?s amendment to the Family Allowances Bill overturned the then Government?s proposal to have Family Allowance paid to the father:

?For moral and economic reasons this would, Rathbone believed, give mothers security and rights, as well as providing better chance of the money being used for the purpose it was intended: the welfare of children. This ?child benefit? payment was universal and paid into the purse. Rathbone knew that mothers could be vulnerable and less able to cope with changes in circumstance; she was also aware that payment direct to mothers made a statement about women?s equal status.?

It could of course be argued that Child Benefit as it currently stands is sexist, in that by giving mothers the payment it helps feed the notion that women are somehow more caring and nurturing than men, and in an ideal world I would be more than happy to argue that men are just as capable of fulfilling that role as women therefore both parents should get the benefit and so on and so forth.

However, we don?t live in an ideal world, we are not in some post-patriarchal post-feminist sodding nirvana. The reality is that women do still bear the brunt of caring responsibilities, that women are still the ones most likely to take on the role of primary carer, and that mothers are still the ones who tend to do the shopping and cooking for their kids.

And it?s also still the case that women are the main victims of domestic violence, and that domestic violence cuts across all classes and income brackets. Rich women get beaten by their husbands too, and so do women who are married to men who pay 40% of their wages back to the taxman.

Speak to anyone who works in a domestic violence shelter, and they will tell you that often-times Child Benefit is the only source of income a woman and her children escaping from a violent partner and father will have.

Speak to anyone who works in the violence against women sector and they will tell you all about how some men use money as a way to exert power and control in a relationship; how many women are denied access to the family finances, and how Child Benefit is often the only money they ever get to see.

Child Benefit is a fucking life-line for some women, and yet this government wants to take it away from them.

Written by by Cath Elliott on this site

Sorry for the long quote but I think it's well written.

This benefit is for mothers, and it about society valuing mothers' contribution to society.

In so far as mumsnet is (loosely) a group of mothers we really should be fighting this!

haven't caught up with all yet but lego: "
wallowsinflies, they are not 'targetting' the pooer with tax credits. yes they are giving them an extra £30 but they are taking 10% away in working tax credits-a loss which is far greater than their gain."

for that to be true someone would be having to get over £300pw in working tax credits. so i think you must be wrong there.

i'm no conservative supporter btw.

Although I see of course that in their incompetent rush to cut everything in sight, the Tories have (hopefully) scuppered this anyway

legostuckinmyhoover
"they don't really want to help the poorer families. in fact, i'm not sure that they want to 'help' anyone."

It really would seem that way. It's just so depressing isn't it

Now, I have an essay to write. I must, must stop this procrastination! If any of you see me here again any time soon please tell me to bog off!

it's ok wallowsinflies, but this is how i understand it:

www.tuc.org.uk/social/tuc-18697-f0.cfm

Good article legostuckinmyhoover. This bit explains it nicely I think ...

"TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'Low income families will have welcomed a £30 a year increase in child tax credit - even if it is only 60p a week. But they will be shocked to learn that buried in the small print are other tax credit cuts of up to £1,500 a year.

'This is a classic conjuring trick - distract the audience while making what they are really interested in disappear.

'This cut is part of a theme to single out women, children and families to bear the brunt of the cuts.'"

very much so, lowrib.

bog off!