Hoo-bloody-ray! Child benefit cuts to be 'looked at for fairness'

[NoWayNoHow]

Basic logic and maths prevails at last!

Fingers crossed they actually find a fairer way to implement - I remember the uproar when it was first announced, simply because it was so ridiculously prejudiced against single salary families.

Assessment should be on total household income.

But anyone paying 50% tax (as i do) and winging about losing child benefit needs a dose of what it's really like to live in poverty, frankly.

Have only had time to skim the thread, but I think the most pertinent point on this thread is that in reality, there can be very little difference in disposable income between a family with an earner on about £43 and a family on about £15, due to the tax credits and other top up benefits the lower earning family are entitled to.

What matters to people is how much money they have left over each month to do as they please with. I wouldnt give a shit if I was on a salary of 15k if overall I had enough money to live to the standard I choose. Equally, if I were earning 3 x that much but wasn't any better off in real terms, I'd probably start questioning the longer hours, tougher responsibilities and greater challenge of the higher earning job.

The single biggest economic balls up in this Country is the fact that there can be very little difference between a) living on benefits and working in a minimum wage job and b) working in a low paid job with govt top ups and working in a higher paid job without them.

What on earth is supposed to be the incentive to anyone ?

I think that you can get jolly tied up in who has the most disposable income etc and it's all meaningless compared to the bedrock involved here. We are all taxed as individuals. The government deals with us all seperately. We receive benefits as individuals. This is what is being changed here. Suddenly the government's expectation is that they can pay a benefit to a household not an individual. That's a huge change. What does that open the door to - being taxed as a household at a therefore higher rate too? Somebody pointed out lower down that the higher tax rate boundary has been dropping. If this absurd policy is inacted it will be as part of a Tory attempt to dsimantle the welfare statement. It's not a financial decision - the finances don't add up. It's not decision on principle - the principle behind it is bobbins. This is a political and idealogical attack. As such one hopes it will fall on it's ill thought out face.

Everyone's circumstances are different. £42k might be considered a lot if you have one child or no child care costs or live in a cheaper area or any other number of variables. It would be less money to family with more than one child, high mortgage, travel costs or maintenance payments etc.

I thought benefits had always been judged on household income, which is why they ask about partners etc.

perhaps it would have been fairer to cut off the benefit after 4 children.

Also if CB is being paid for children who live abroad, the money may be sent to another country and that is not benefitting the economy. Perhaps the government could look at this instead. Wouldn't that save a load of money?

'The idea that women in 2012 still live in homes where their dp/dh REFUSE to share money fairly makes me depressed to the core.'

It's pretty shit for the women living like that too I would think. No use wringing on our hands over it though - it still happens and the government are doing feck all to help.

Childcare costs are a red herring: two reasons:

a) all children and reach eg secondary age, when childcare costs simply aren't an issue but CB is still paid
b) childcare costs are an element in CTC, not CB.

Haven't read thread so this may have been said, but imo this is a shocking shocking idea and makes me want to weep.

CB is, to me at least, a statement of rights. Rights for a child. No matter who gets it or why, it's somehow enshrined in my mind, as a statement of belonging for the child.

I don't care if people who have squillions get it. Their children are just as deserving. It might be an old fashioned view, but it is imo literally like taking sweets/aptamil from a baby.

How fucking dare they? I mean, how dare they? It's just wrong. It's cynical, classist (yes, just like racist) and altogether fundamentally Wrong. Last bastion of the wicked.

And as a footnote, all the threads on relationships where an abused woman is advised to get child benefit paid into her lone account as a matter of urgency - well, it won't matter anymore will it.

It's the Principle here. When/if Kate Middleton has dc, she is just as entitled to CB as me - a cleaner earning 5 grand a year.

So will it go from April to April ie should dp stop doing overtime from this April?

..or William if they split and any dc live with him. It's about a statement of rights for the children for me.

This is what bugs me whilst they're dicking about pontificating some of us need to start planning in order to deal with the problem.

hairytale I haven't read all the thread but it's people on 40% tax who are really the issue here, isn't it? That's a huge jump in income to 50% and I haven't seen people on here who are top rate taxpayers complaining.

yes it is the ridiculously low threshold which HRT applies, so not only is higher tax paid but CB is lost too so not very good.

unlikely sounds nice, but not really practical when cuts need to be made.

The government always goes on about cuts needing to be made - but it's only us who have to make them. For the super rich, it's business as usual.

A likely consequence of these crap Policies is that people will work the system, and seek work which keeps them just under the HRT threshold. Much in the same way that we've seen people deliberately limiting their work hours to 2 days a week, so they are working enough hours to qualify for tax credits but not enough to actually put themselves out too much.

Then the country will be totally fucked when they realise theyve got people prepared to work in the really top notch high paid jobs, enough people to work the part time or low stress/ responsibility jobs- but not enough suckers prepared to work in the often stressful, demanding middle bracket jobs

"hairytale I haven't read all the thread but it's people on 40% tax who are really the issue here, isn't it? That's a huge jump in income to 50% and I haven't seen people on here who are top rate taxpayers complaining."

I don't think it is a huge jump (could be wrong).

But if you earn £44k you are definately not living in poverty.

Sorry I was confusing 50% rate - I meant 40%

People on the 40% rate are crtainly not living in poverty and I'd rather lose cb than have the disabled lose benefits.

Earning £44K is not the same as taking home £44k though and how far it stretches really is dependent on so many variables. It might not be poverty, but it's not so much money that people won't feel totally screwed over by the government, as they watch their income fall and their outgoings rise.

This is thin end of the wedge. The very poor have little sympathy for the middle earners, and the time will come when the govt claws back more and more from the very poorest, but they will then lack the support of the middle earners. This is part of the Tory plan.

Many people receiving other benefits are hardly living in poverty.

We're talking about making ends meet.

Considering how close somebody on £42K is to people just receiving other benefits quite clearly these should be cut too as they aint living in poverty either.

My dp works his arse off in a sometimes stressful job,why shouldn't he have less stress,less money but get it topped up to nearly the same by the state.

Sounds great if you can get it.

As I said before either the threshold is too low or we're paying too much in benefits you can't have it both ways.

Not sure anybody can justify somebody being paid by the state to have much the same in their pocket as a higher tax payer really if we're going to go down that route.

this is just another nail in the coffin for working mothers.

i am personally very, very angry. i work in one of those middle management jobs that people have referred to. i am just over the threshold (48k) After paying tax, pension contribution (8% of my salary) and childcare, there isnt a lot left. i pay a small fortune in tax, dont get CTC but CB was one of the things which made going to work add up financially.

I take no other benefitsfrom the state. I dont feel i get any reward for contributing to the economy, to the improving the strength of women in the workplace, for working hard to keep my family happy, for working my A8rse of to get where I am, but i realise that opinion will not be shared by people who will probably read this post and say "lucky cow whats she complaining about."

And all they will save is £1bn a year (that doesnt take into account cost of administering). Its a joke. you could save multiple billions if you ran the public sector in anywhere near an efficient manager, sacked half the whitehall mandarins who come up with these illogical policies and removed their final salary liabilities.

so, so, so angry.

Agree mrsheffley.

Surely there aren't people who are reliant on benefits that get benefits to the tune of a higher rate salary.

And karma I think most of us understand that salary is expressed pre-tax.