Apparently there will be a rethink on the scrapping of child benefit

[emkana]

according to the times today.

If they could look at the fact again that a household on 80k will keep it while a household on 42 will lose it then I'm all for it.

I don't understand how it can be administered. If it's based on individual incomes, then what about the SAHM/SAHD who is earning zero. He/she would still be eligible, but anyone earning over the threshold (whatever that is) wouldn't be?

So, it won't be like tax credits which was based on household income?

Xenia: Interesting proposition.

Re-locate from the expensive south east? Nice idea but there are no jobs anywhere else. I think child benefit is a shame. It will now carry stigma as a means tested benefit and was one of the few things that went directly to mums and had the best chance of being spent on children. I simply think they shouldve limited how many children they pay out for. 3 maximum. It's not supposed to be an incentive to multiply and in some areas it is.
The joint income assessment is obvious but again costly so I wonder if they'll bother? Although if they're going to bring in married couples tax allowances?

Some of these cuts need rethinking because household incomes are massively suffering and are shrinking rapidly. This might be ok short term, but with growth being near to ZERO and the stockmarket feeling its grim effects as well as the overall economy, strategies need to be put in place to get the economy going again.

Of course child benefit alone will not be a solution to people spending more, but certainly cutting more from people's purses will not be helping.

It needs to be based on household income in order for it to be fair.

We're unlikely to get it even if the rules change, but I think it's unfair that it's based on the tax bracket of a singe wage earner and not the household income.

I can't argue we need our CB, but I really resent loosing it.
Why! Because it is the only money, I as a SAHM, got in my name. By not means testing it felt the Government were acknowledging that bringing up the next generation is a important think to do.
Scrapping it is just another thing in the drip drip drip of propaganda that says go to work for peanuts, pay some other poor sod peanuts to bring up your kids. Oh and you and DH will never see each other in the summer because you'll each have to have 2 weeks to look after the DCs while the other works.

But if you do this we might get 2.5 pence more tax out your family!

When they first announced this, I don't think they could say how much money it would actually save. So I suspect they'll do a u-turn saying that it won't really save any money - only way they could save face.

The inherent unfairness is what gets me. Also making it means tested costs money, end of. Plus Beveridge, who set down the foundations for the welfare state, pointed out that means testing creates a poverty trap so not exactly the best way to do things.

Edith, I don't assume anything. I did say that single parents won't be able to send a non working partner out to work if the amount of CB is so crucial to the household income. I did also say that having been a single parent for 17 years now I wouldn't have needed CB if I was a HRT, but that's just me.

Not sure what is a SAHM going out to work a few hours a week to make up the loss of CB got to do with getting people off benefits.

Jojoks. - Wondered how restricting it to 3 children would really work. I have 5 in my family. Both myself and now DH had children when we met and as a combined family we now have over the 3 you think it should be limited to. Neither of us planned to have this number of children and neither of us intended to be left on our own to bring up our children. Problem is always that everyone thinks their circumstances and the ones which mean people should still qualify but there are so many family circumstances that it is hard to please all of the people all of the time.

Main carer only get CB for the first 3, I would assume.

Can see Xenia thinks poor people shouldn't breed, politics straight from 1930's Germany.

A lot of guff spoken above.

adamschic - don't forget that with the introduction of the Lib Dems policy of increasing the point at which one pays any tax at all, the higher rate taxpayer threshold has been brought down to ensure that higher rate taxpayers don't benefit from the changes. Plus over the years, the higher rate tax thresholds have not kept up with inflation ie those on relatively far lower salaries are now higher rate taxpayers, and this will become increasingly more so as the Lib Dems continue increasing the cut-off point when tax is paid at all to 10 or 12 grand (a worthy enterprise, but one with the side effect of ensuring that many more people are now higher-rate taxpayers, and that number will increase until HRT starts at 40K or lower).

What this means in practice is that - unlike many years ago when you were a higher rate taxpayer - it is no longer only the comfortably off who are higher rate taxpayers. 40K will not buy a life of comfort for a family in the SE - if that family has 3 kids, it can ill afford to lose £188/month - I know, because we are one.

For us - contrary to some bizarre claims above that it all goes on the 3rd games machine, or the 7th telly or something - that money is absolutely essential for food and basic essentials. (We have 1 telly and no games machines at all.) Our rent (we can't afford to buy) in the SE is v high; even with a long commute into London. Moving to a cheaper part of the UK is not an option - my OH's job can only be done in London. I do work part time as well (no way we could afford for me not to), but with kids full-time work would cost more than part-time, due to childcare costs).

So no, rest assured that whilst there may be some (increasingly few in this day and age) whose child benefit is saved up for a rainy day or spent on luxuries, there are plenty of families - including those with one HRT payer - for whom it really is an essential.

I should add that we qualify for no other benefits at all - we lost our child tax credit last year - but I do feel quite strongly that child benefit is one of the cornerstones of the welfare state and should be universal, like a pension - no-one argues that all pensions should be means tested, and the rich should not get them, so why are children picked on in this way?

because make no mistake, it is the children who will suffer.

We live in the SE. We are in the HRT bracket. DH works, I am a SAHM. We stretched ourselves to get a 4 bed house in a decent village with an ok school. We do chose to run two (old cheap) cars because DH commutes in one and the bus services aren't good enough. We have two children under 3. With all that, we count our grocery bills each week, don't have takeaway, haven't been holiday since our honeymoon. We do not have cable/Sky television. I tutor in my spare time to get some extra money. There is not usually much left at the end of each month.

We are lucky. We are (as long as we continue to manage the mortgage) asset-rich. Have a big house, can with budget planning buy decent clothes that will last through both children (breathed a sigh of relief to have two of the same gender).

But people tell me that we are rich, wealthy, well-off and make jibes about Waitrose shopping and foreign holidays. I appreciate that we have more than many, but the suggestion that households earning just into the HRT bracket have money to spare is just not true.

I agree: it's not about where they draw the line, it's about that line being in the same place for every household.

The comment which (wrongly it seems) I read as your characterising the personal circumstances of a number of posters on this thread was:

"Oh so you are all happy about losing it as long other families that both go out to work but each earn less than your husband's lose it too".

I think the plans are very unfair and anti SAHP. Child benefit was one of the main principles of the welfare state when it was created. It was recognised that parents, and yes mothers, were doing a 'job' of raising children and should be helped to do that. Scrapping it as a universal benefit is not a good idea in my opinion. Especially if it is unfair, as it most certainly is. The only good thing is that tthis government will never stay in power as they are alienating an increasing number of electorate.

Because that is how it comes across. Hubby earns 50K and I SAH and we don't mind as long as those lot over the road who both work full time for 25K each lose it too. I don't really understand why it would make it OK tbh.

Has anybody mentioned the mind-boggling unfairness of getting a pay rise which takes you into the higher tax band and this making you several thousand pounds worse off? That is just totally bizarre and makes a mockery of the idea that people should work hard to improve their circumstances.

Daisy, it's called a 'benefit trap' experienced by many. They should raise the threshold each year to compensate for that. I suspect that they will review it to account for a transitional phase and people won't be losing as much as they first said.

What makes it OK is that it's money for bringing up DC. The couple both earning £25K probably have childcare costs and could put it towards that, the SAHP in the other couple is putting the hours in her/himself so should get the equivalent money. Ideally, both should continue to receive it - I do think it should be universal - but if one loses it, both should.

desertorchid so your argument seems to be that you should get child benefit so that you can be a sahm with a big house in a nice area?

desertorchid so your argument seems to be that you should get child benefit so that you can be a sahm with a big house in a nice area?

I agree with adamschic sahm supported by a higher rate tax payer seem to think they should keep it but two working parents on, say, £25k each (so the majority of one salary probably going on childcare) should lose it.

I agree with adamschic sahm supported by a higher rate tax payer seem to think they should keep it but two working parents on, say, £25k each (so the majority of one salary probably going on childcare) should lose it.

Er Daisy you misunderstand how the tax system works. You don't all of a sudden get taxed on all of your income at 40% when you're in the higher rate.

Example, say the higher tax rate starts at £43,000. If I earn £43,000 I.e. a £1 over, only the £1 above £43k is taxed at the higher rate. The rest is as it was when on a lower salary. So you're not worse off at all.