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

I have heard a rumour that people who don't live in Surrey have jobs.

So for those of you who think that it is a lifestyle choice for Mila wanting to live close to her family what do you suggest as an alternative?

Are you proposing that everyone moves to cheap areas of the country and leave London and the Home Counties to the very rich?

Mila worrying about money is a fact of life for most of us. Worrying about money from your own home in Surrey surrounded by 3 children sounds a rather comfortable life to me.

I don't live in Surrey thats the point,we can't afford to.We live in the Southwest.

I can't afford to live near the family that would be capable of helping me so I do not. I have chosen to live near elderly family who need care, to provide that care we have had to sell our home and a second child may be a luxury unless one of them dies. I don't for one second think I have it hard in comparison to some people.

I wonder what mila thinks about people on housing benefit living somewhere they cannot afford. Why is it acceotable for Mila to use hr child benefit to live somewhere she can't really afford but people who claim housing benefit have to make do.

Tbh if you own your own home anywhere life has been good to you, especially somewhere as beautiful as the South West.

£1000 a month is even below the Conservatives proposed HB cap.

I know there are jobs outside London - it's just that there are 7.5 million of in greater London and not enough housing so it's a bit expensive. But if everybody else is happy to give up their jobs so we can relocate to cheaper housing outside London, well that's just fab - a very generous offer.

I have rented a house for well under 1K a month and I suspect we are geographically not far from you. The school in which I work has a vacancy!

Because I don't receive any other benefits unlike people in receipt of HB and we are actually paying for our house ourselves however unfair that is. Paying for your home gives you choice rightly or wrongly.

CB is the only benefit many people will ever have. The point is people just around the cut off are really going to feel it,it's not fair that they should be regarded in the same light as people on megabucks for which £188 a month wouldn't even keep them in cosmetics.

A lot of those people around thatcut off bracket will have similar in their pockets each month to people on benefits and they cost the country very little too.

Water if it covered my expenses I'd snap your hands off but sadly there are bunfights for most jobs in schools near me as many people retire down here to there last job and don't move on.

But you begrudge giving up a benefit that is my point. Why is your benefit more deserved than any one elses?

As you say you have bought your home and have exercised a choice that many of us won't have.

Sorry 'their'

I think my disagreement with MilaMae is that I think the welfare state should be safety net for those who have fallen on hard times and need a hand up. Someone who is a higher taxpayer is not in this position and so I don't think you should be entitles to benefits.

Well how would you feel if you had to give up a benefit that your family would really feel the effects of?

I wouldn't have a problem with it as I don't believe that me or my family should recieve any benefits

Huddspur well why should people on £40 K and £80 still get it? Why should well heeled pensioners get their benefits?

Also times have changed mortgages are sky high (and hard to get),food has gone up as has fuel. Many families on £44K are going to have to save for uni and in some cases a mortgage,CB is a lifeline these days.

I have been on benefits in the past and when I went back into work my family did really feel the effects as we were worse off for quite some time. At the time however I did own my own home so I recognised that I wa lucky.

Just as now money is tight for our family, so tight that DH may never have a child of his own. So tight we no longer have a home of our own. I still recognise that I am luckier than most and don't waste my rather valuable life feeling hard done by and bitter about what I percieve others to have.

Hudd if you had the same in your pocket as me at the end of each month you would. Believe me if I wasn't camping in the summer,running 1 battered old car and shopping at Lidls I'd feel the same.

Mila a mortgage is not an essential!

That's great Water but we're all different as are our life circumstances.

I agree that that people on £80k shouldn't get it. I would have gone further than the Government and said that anyone household with an income of 44k should recieve it.

No it isn't Water but as the rental situation near us is way overstretched thank god people have them.

As it is rent is higher and if people give up their mortgages which many might have to there will be a housing problem and personally I can only see those on HB as being the biggest group to suffer if that happens.

I suppose it depends on the size of your mortgage and how new it is.

I have rented a 3 bed house for less than a mortgage would cost me.

I have a friend who relocated and had to rent his house out, the rent at the market rate did not cover the mortgage.

If I bought the house I am renting my mortgage would be much higher.

And as others have said even if you have a lower mortgage, which is not necessarily the case, you have to put down a deposit which in the current climate is likely to 10s of thousands. To be able to save that kind of money is a luxury.