I'm starting to get scared now.

[stuffedauberginexmasdinner]

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britains-poorest-hit-by-25bn-stealth-tax-6281832.html

...now?

I've been scared for a while now

"Single mother with two children working 32.5 hours a week
2010-11 £33,666"

Ok, seriously?? Where have they got this figure?? I'm a single mother to 2 children, and granted I only work 25 hours a week but I get no where near that amount.

But saying that I dont even reach the "12k low earner threshold"!

It's been fecking terrifying since the Tory gits bargained their way in to power propped up by the Lib dem fuckwits and will be getting worse. Personally I'm really looking forward to seeing how they justify actually removing child benefit from families earning £40 000 through one higher tax rate wager earner whilst leaving it for dual income families earning more but where both are in the middle tax rate band.

A cut in tax credits is hardly a stealth tax, is it? Article and headline are barely related.

"Couple with two children, dual earners working a total of 42 hours a week
Net annual income 2010-11 £44,798
2013-14 £38,281 (-£6,517)"

These are massive drops aren't they.

are tax credits being removed from a couple earning over 25k a year?

Tax credits should never have been paid to people earning £30K, £40K, £50K in the first place. They were a sticking-plaster bribe to the masses, letting Labour off tackling the real problems e.g. low wages and overpriced costs of living. I think it was the slimiest trick of the lot that the party supposedly committed to improve the lot of ordinary people instead paid them to stay poor. Fine when the banks were shovelling cash into the Exchequer hand over fist ..... but when the banks struggled and the cashflow stopped, the policy became unsustainable.

Tax credits were intorduced not as a bribe but to replace what was already there - the married couples tax allowance. Dh lost that - worth £545 a year and instead got the first tax credit - worth £545!

Conservatives have always been against min wage though so I don't see that they are going to do anything to tackle that problem. Nor high house prices given that many of them are v wealthy and will have lots of property in their investment portfolios.

this was a bill when the current economic crisis kicked off and I'm sure I have read other MPs and conservative think tanks suggesting this amongst other frankly terrifying changes to employment law.

I think the idea is that abolishing min wage will allow us to compete better globally.

DOG- I have looked into this as it will affect us aswell as Dh is also a low earner.
From what i can work out it means that you will nominate your DH as claiming for your household so he will be subject to conditionality. He will have to fulfill his obligation to provide an income over the 17000 a year, otherwise 'you' become subject to conditionality. Meaning that you have to earn the shortfall between his earnings and the 17000. That may mean that you are both working full time or a minimum of 35 hours a week each. If you do not comply with conditionality then there will be enforcable sanctions placed upon you you will have broken your UC conditionality contract!!

I am a bit annoyed as i found a pretty easy to read link to all of this the other day and now cant track it down and i may have totally misinterpreted it all

Hopefully someone with far more knowledge will come along and explain it better than me but i will keep looking for that link for you.

The conditionality is changed dependant of your family makeup. If you have DC under 5 it changes, the same as if you are a lone parent.

Its good to see they have made it easy to understand

I am also intrigued by the word 'conditionality'. Have they made it up!!

www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/ucpbn-11-conditionality-threshold.pdf

www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/ucpbn-12-work-search.pdf

Heres the links that explains conditionality. Its not the one i found the other day as it doesnt state the 17000 cut off which you have mentioned DOG. I have also seen that figure so it must be out there somewhere!

For a couple with children over a certain age (12) it states that full conditionality will be set at 212.80 a week each (based on current minimum wage) before you are removed from the conditionality group which has the sanctions attached.

Individual conditionality will be set based on your family set up. All by an online system i might add.

Computers have a wonderful way of looking at everyones individual circumstances

Bet thats confused you.

Does anyone know what's happening with carer couples ?

I have 2 dcs with severe asd, dp works 22 hours a week, it was 40 but has been cut at and cut at. He's tried to get more work but there's chuff all going.

And tbh it suits me, i'm barely managing as it is ( tho i'd never admit that )

When am I supposed to sleep ?

The youngest often starts his day at 2am. How am I supposed to be able to care for him during the day with no help ?

I am a tired, sad cheese.

I thought that the threshold for the higher rate taxpayers would be adjusted so that they wouldn't be any better off from the increase in income tax thresholds? Or am I getting confused??

I wondered about sleep too. Yes I could work in one of those many 10-2 pm permanent-contract jobs paying at least NMW which are flexible enough to fit around DS' holidays, INSET days, many MANY appointments for Paed, SALT, ultrasounds, OT, as well as his sister's frequent hospitalisations, and he also regularly starts his day at two or three a.m as well as having been up two or three times before that.

Perhaps David Cameron should let us all know how he and Samantha managed. It can't have been all to do with being immensely rich, and surely we should all just pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and work for what we want - like the PM and their friends all did

@niceguy2... Higher rate taxpayers don't benefit from the increase in personal allowance thresholds. It's tapered so that they are excluded..

So if i'd kicked DH out and dropped my hours, I could have been pulling in over £33 k ?

jesus, scrap them all, what a load of crap.

If your husband is only working 22 hours then surely you can catch up on sleep when he is at home

When it comes to carers, I think the alarm is misplaced. Stands to reason that the expectation of taking employment over claiming benefits will fall much more heavily on those without restrictions, whatever they happen to be. Also stands to reason that if there are no jobs available then no-one can be made to accept one. The objective has to be to get people off benefits and into work wherever possible because that's the only way to eradicate poverty. It's going to be a more challenging process, but if work is genuinely not a realistic option because someone is disabled or has heavy caring commitments, then that person will continue to be exempted.

I've just been sobbing my heart out. We earn around £38,000 between us, have an interest only mortgage (can't afford a 'proper' one at the moment) have cut back to almost nothing, never go out, have to pay full everything, work like idiots and are still really struggling. trying so hard not to be bitter but it's getting difficult - moan over. :(

This is so blatantly about 'them' and 'us'. It isn't about getting people to have a 'work ethic'.

It's about saying 'I know you work 50 hours per week at NMW to support your family, but your partner needs to find work too, because you don't earn enough.

Meanwhile, the person who is fortunate enough to be co-habiting, engaged to, married to, whatever, a person who has a well paying job can be told:

'Ahh I know your partner only works 26 hours per week, but they earn a good salary, so you don't need to worry about it...no conditionality.'

Yet, both families have one person working and one not. How is that equitable?

Yes I can catch up on sleep when he isn't working, during term time that is. Holidays is a different matter.

Then add in the fact he needs 2 / 1 support in school as he's a danger to himself / others PLUS his sister who needs constant 1/1 and at 13 still can't wipe her own arse without being reminded there really is. Bit more to it then simple sleep catch up.

No chuffin way I could work, I'm a nervous wreck these days for a start.

norrishohoholeforsaviour

Obviously you feel very unhappy.

However, £38k/year is around the average household income in the UK. Moreover, you currently have an IO mortgage so your outgoings on the mortgage must be very small. I'm not really of the opinion that giving state benefits to those who earn the average or higher household income is a good use of taxpayer money. State handouts should be a safety net, not a way of living for the bulk of the population.

The whole tax credit system just seemed to be way for the prior government to create a client state. Nothing more than a bribe. Households earning 30k/year+ were given tax credits to make them feel richer than they really were and create an illusory standard of living.

What this country needs is not tax credits but a lower cost of living. Lower house prices are the key. Higher wages won't help since we compete against emerging countries with even lower wages than us.

I'm not unhappy about our salaries as such, I'm just sad that somehow we can't manage to have a better that basic standard of living on this. Our Mortgage isn't that small - we bought late and are 'older' parents with small children which makes a difference. I also stupidly ran up some hefty debts as I was unemplyed for six months this year and we got very littleback up from the state when it was needed - Dh works in the public sector and is threatened with redunancy/pay cut and it's all a bloody worry Some of it is our choice and my stupidity, I admit that. Some of it is bad luck.