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.

They simply not know. Obviously benefit claimants who don't work already have this system where h ousehold income is counted so women have to ensure the lover is not staying over night very often.

If you have two or three women you stay with then I suppose HMRC are going to have to decide when you become a "couple" and how that is defined. I expect it will be huge fun for them.

It was a very important principle which |I hope Cameron will not forget when we moved to separate taxation of husband and wife rather than taxed as if you were one entity. It was a huge step for women's rights and freedoms and we must not see it undone.

'It will be the responsinility of the HR tax payer to inform HMRC whether their household is in receipt of CB...' etc etc' That is the problem - what if the HR tax payer does not know that his wife receives this and she doesn't tell him as they have separate finances - who are they going to prosecute?

It would be a pretty strange marriage or unmarried partnership if they didnt know if the other person receives child benefit though in practice. I think most higher rate tax payers who live with a man or woman who lives with their chidlren that they are likely to get CB.

I don't think that I have said that families with one HRT are loaded but compared to many they have a good standard of living.

We cannot afford to buy a house, we do not live up north, we have been unable to afford a second child, we can only afford meat so many times a week, holidays are in a tent, I can't afford to learn to drive, clothes are often second hand, I eat extra food at work so I don't have to eat again at home, we can't afford the heating until it is at its very coldest in January. So we are not loaded and I am sure we could find a way to spend our child benefit. However having lived on benefits and a low wage I would not claim that we are poor and I recognise that others need the money more than me.

The strangeness of the situation re cb claimant stating that they don't know what their partner/spouse earns is irrelevant.

The revenue would still need to 'join up' this information, and it's very uncertain how this could happen with, for example, the current Data Protection Act.

The point Xenia, as you said earlier, is the principle of independent taxation of married women. The cb I receive is my income, not dh's, and so, if anyone should be taxed on it, it is me. As I don't earn anywhere near my allowances and indeed, get a refund of all my tax each year, why should my income appear on his return and he pay tax on it?

I have to admit scary and Xenia that I had not thought of it in that way, although I am the HRT so it would make no difference to me.

Well, they said they planned to make legislative changes, o we shall see.

We shall see. Benefit claimants are already in this system and husband and wife used to be. In fact women used not to be able to own property at all once they were married. Then there was a married woman's Property Act in the 1880s which changed that.

There's a case called Imerman where the courts have said it is up to married couples how much privacy they want - if they want to read everything of each other, bank statements etc as losto f us do - total openness and transparency. I did both our tax returns. Other couples choose to keep loads of things secret. Not least their long term mistress and second family and the like never mind their P45.

The problem comes when you have the pool of people who get CB but not anything else, so you can't join them up without breaking data protection or using info to link them that has nothing to do with CB, or HMRC, and so that would be very dubious as well. I don't see how this can be achieved without repealing independent taxation of married women, and if we do that, then presumably we go back to transferable allowances between spouses, which will cost the government more than CB does anyway.

They didn't think it thro - there are two problems we have all identified;
Unfairness of removing it based not on joint incomr but income profile
Having to compel partners to share information, altho thi may well be one way _ the hrt asking the main carer of hi/her dcs if they receive cb and then what? Hrt pays it back via paye or sa?or claimant ceases claim and hopes for a bit of cash from hubbie/wifey?

So if DH puts on his tax return that we are not claiming CB, there is no way for the govt to check if we are?

What about using the address ie we use the same address for the tax return and the CB claim so wouldn't they be able to match it up that way?

Currently there is no box on the satr for cb. However, it then gets interesting (for nerds like me) would it get treated as taxable at 40 percent, or clawed back via a reduced allowance (imposible in really high earners as they don't get a pa, iirc) and new laws have to go thro stages so they will have to get a wiggle on to be all set for jan 13.

I wonder if they will close the confereence wih a bit of good news?

I'm baffled completely! Presumably through NI numbers (which the tax office have and are on the child benefit forms, yet?) they will work out that you are in the 40% tax rate and claiming cb?

So as someone who does not claim child benefit will I end up paying it back through tax even though I don't get it. Or do I just carry on not getting it?

Exactly! So you only get it as a family if you meet certain criteria - not having a hrt. Equally, if you earn a fortune, but your partner doesn't you won't get benefits as income is asessed on both partners. That's where this proposal falls down!

Presumably people like I am (single mothers who earn too much) the sensible course would be to notify the authorities to withdraw your child benefit and then apply again if you fall on harder times rather than bother with fiddling around with the tax return.

If you have a live in lover who pretends he's impoverished and you aren't very well off that's when there may be difficulties or a spouse who has won the lottery and not told the other half.

Well so long as they don't set it too low I don't care, we have a single income of under 30k a year, I don't see a penny of it, since being the one forced to stop work to look after our son (because I had the lower wage) that £30.81 a week I get in CB and TC is the only money I get. .

'Presumably through NI numbers (which the tax office have and are on the child benefit forms, yet?) they will work out that you are in the 40% tax rate and claiming cb?'

How? I am the cb claimant and pay no NI whatsoever, so how will they link my NINO with dh's, as we are for all intents and purposes separate entitities for tax and NI.

Scary: if you're receiving CB, you'll also be receiving an NI credit (important for preserving longterm benefit entitlement such as pension). So

Sorry - didn't mean to post that!

Being in the NI system probably doesn't link you up with your DH's tax record.