If the Tories come into power, tax credits could be axed :-O

[GlastonburyGoddess]

In the news today. Im appalled. Talking about how tax credits create a demotivation to earn more etc etc

Im disgusted, no mention of if it would be replaced with something else.

we both work, we get our wages at the end of the month and within 3 days its gone on bils, we then live day to day off the tax credits. we'd be f**d hope they dont end up in power....

I think we must be talking at cross purposes Lou. My only point is that it would be less bureaucratic and in essence more honest, to have a more straight forward progressive and fair tax system than to take tax away with one hand and give (some of it) back with the other - which is what's happening in some cases (certainly was for someone I employed -her tcs were no way near as much as her tax bill).

I'm not sure I get your point when you say "DH would have to earn £56000 per year for a 'tax relief' to equal our CTC+WTC per year." Do you mean that your CTC and WTC is equivalent to the tax on a salary of £56k? Are you sure? According to this your estimate of tax on an income of £50k is quite a bit out. you'd be paying just over £14k taxes (including NI, which is tax by any other name) on an income of £50k. But in any case my only point was what I said in the first paragraph.

Don't get me wrong - I totally recognise that TCs have had a very positive impact on many people and there's no way I would wish to see them abolished without massive, fundamental reform of the tax system. which isn't going to happen - whoever wins the election

lou - sorry - don't answer that question about your wtc and ftc - far too personal - apologies. it was meant hypothetically. now I really must drag myself away and get on with some work...

I have to say that since we currently get about £14000 a year in tax credit, for the tax relief idea to work, my OH would have to be earning about £50,000 a year. He currently earns less than £15,000 working 2 jobs, 6 days a week. I can't see a tax relief scheme working for us at all.

I can remember the last Tory government very well. I was a single parent with 2 very small children. We were expected to live off £72 a week. You couldn't keep any child maintenance, your family allowance was counted as income, so deducted from your income support and you were only allowed to earn £5 pounds a week. I also know many families who were ripped apart by the mine closures and lost manufacturing up here, to the point where several fathers that I knew commited suicide because they could see no future for themselves or their families. I wouldn't trust the Tories as far as I could throw them. I don't believe they have changed at all, scratch the surface and they are still the same bunch.

£14000? Do you claim for childcare as well?

We get just over £12000 in TCs, for 3 children, one 'severely disabled', no childcare costs. DH earns 14500 pa. Even if you factor in NI contributions, DH would have to earn £47000 per year for the tax relief to match our tax credits. No way a manual worker is going to be paid that.

SG we dont get far off that- a few thousand less.

The big portion is that made up by the disability portions for two children, then the usual for the other two children as well given that ATM our income is £50 pw earned, £106 for 2 X Carers.

It will change again in a few weeks (Both off to study, and I am looking for work) but that sort f amount can exist; however we don't get benefits such as IS etc, and has kept us in private housing and p[aying all our bills since DH's redundancy.

The key factor here is that DH does work- OK so self employment at the start dosn't pay much, but I am a massive beleiver in helping those who do something to change their bad luck- study, working including start up businesses etc. In a few eyars we shouldn't qualify for any beenfits or WTc / CTC at all and it will be these few months support that enabled that.

After DH working 2 jobs for 5 years and me working right up until ds1's DX then studying up until 2008 (ie not claiming) I think its a good example ofhelping those who areb doing their best in a challenging situation. theren are far better peolpe to go after (non contributing absent parents for a start) than those who are trying to climb out of dependance.

No, I don't claim for child care. I have 5 children and can't work because 3 of them have Asperger's and one of them is dyslexic with a visual-motor problem, so I was forced, through lack of support in school, to HE. So I am a SAHM.

We depend on the Tax Credit system. My OH works 6 days a week, leaves home at 7.30am and doesn't get back home until 7.30pm in the evening. If he has to work on a Sunday, he has to leave home just after 6am and walk for 90minutes to the train station because there are no buses out of here. He works damned hard for £15,000 a year. Up until this time last year he was working a full time job with 3 hours travel every day for £12,500 a year. Since he started his new job and kept saturday work with his old company, his salary has increased by £2,500, but we are still under the cut off amount for full WFTC. Oh and the £15,000 he earns now, is a good bit above average where we live, so there are many, many people who receive 1/2 their income in Tax Credit.

perhaps I should also have said that my OH doesn't work for some fly-by-night rogue company or whatever. He works for a government agency in his main job and for a very well known, multi-national travel agency at the weekends. Until last November that's where he he had worked full time for almost 10 years. Previous to that he had been a nuclear engineer but he had a nervous breakdown some years ago and lost that job through a combination of sick leave and privatisation cut backs.

He could have just languished on the dole until a "suitable" job presented itself, or even kept on claiming incapacity benefit or whatever, but he made the conscious decision to take whatever kind of job he could to provide towards the support of his own family. Tax Credits made this possible. They also allow us to not claim any other benefits, like housing benefit, council tax benefit or whatever and made it possible for my husband to regain his self esteem and confidence.

As none of you seem to earn over the 50,000 threshold for the change the Conservatives are proposing what's the problem?

They aren't going after the lower paid they are going after the people who earn over £50,000 a year.

It's just more scare tactics by Labour, the party that said 'no more spin' and then let Mandleson back into a top job.

i don't see why it should be taken from over 50k per year either really, especially when if both were earning it will be 25k each and taxed less anyway, whereas on 50k per year you are already paying 40% tax, so doesn't that penalise families where the husband earns more and wife stays at home?
when you pay soo much tax the least they can do is just give a bit back on tax credit/child benefit etc
other countries manage on a 20% maximum tax for any income, i think our governments just dont know how to manage money and waste it all. just because earning 50k or more doesnt mean people are happy to have that wasted, often they have to put in long hours for that

Because Labour has bankrupted the country and cuts HAVE to be made somewhere.

We can't cut all the waste overnight.

As you say, tax is too high, and part of that is this nonsense of giving benefits to people that are relatively wealthy - people that should not be part of the welfare state, but are.

atlantis- because it's a discussion, it's how we share information and challenge things like the belief that TC's are just a refund- they're not.

I don't understand why people come on and challange why conversations have moved on since the OP: bloody boring if they didn't!

£50k with one child and no childcare is amssively different from £50k with 3 children all under 5, maybe on with SN or even more. It needs to be done, as now, on a sliding scale.

There's also an unsaid assumption, or I get the impression there is, that it is only Tories or labout to choose from.

there are more options,and they are only minority aprties if nobody votes for them.

being anti or just non Tory does not make soemone Labour or like Mandelson or unaware of the finances of the country

£50k with one child and no childcare is amssively different from £50k with 3 children all under 5, maybe on with SN or even more. It needs to be done, as now, on a sliding scale.

Actually you're wrong. Firstly the age of the children is not taken into consideration, unless they are under 12 months, in which case you get £545 extra per family.

Secondly, even with three children and a disability payment, on £50k you would not get any extra help - the, initially high, tax credit assessment from having the three kids + disability, would be eaten up by the £50k salary.

The £50k in question is actually a reference to the "second income threshold", a device which ring-fences £545 (or £1090 if you have a child under 1) of the child tax credit allowance not to start to be withdrawn until you earn at least £50k.

An average 2-child family is subject to a marginal tax rate of 70% on income from £6.5k to £30k, and then the next £20k is not subject to any 'tax credit tax' at all, then beyond £50k they will be taxed at either 37.67% or or 47.67%, depending on whether they are higher or basic rate tax payer (possible in a dual income family).

This is illogical, to say the least.

The £50k threshold is just an ideological attempt to expand the welfare state as far as possible. A family with a baby with no special needs earning £67,000 a year would still be entitled to tax credits.

This is a perfect example of the sort of expenditure that can and should be cut.

I agree with Peachy. Just because someone is anti Tory doesn't make them a Labour supporter. And just because you can see that a government may have done some good things doesn't mean that you would vote for them in the big picture.

I vote SNP and will continue to do so unless there are big changes with the other parties. I don't trust LAbour either, especially in light of all the dealins I have had with our MP over one thing and another.

'Because Labour has bankrupted the country and cuts HAVE to be made somewhere.'

Bailing out those bastard banks I reckon.

Well partly, but they began running up the deficit from the minute they got into power. NHS spending, for instance, rose so quickly that most of the extra money was wasted, and output barely rose at all - despite doubling spending.

fancy spending money on nurses and doctors. Sheesh. Whatever next?
Output did rise. Waiting lists are now under 12 weeks unlike the 2 years under the Tories. I still marvel at that.

They spent less money on the doctors and nurses than they did on the managers, middle managers, line managers and other pen pushers, why are there more pen pushers in the nhs than front line staff?

Why close all the wards, units and then hospitals if they value the nhs so much?

You can quote waiting times all you want but it still takes 4-6-8 hrs to get through A&E, how is that an improvement?

And try getting an MRI from the nhs, my son was paralysed from a spinal tumour before they even took a look at him, we had to get a private MRI and then when he lost full lower body use they said if we wanted to go privately he could go in the next day, other than that two weeks.

The nhs are a shame, they are the bandaid that gives after care instead of the diagnostic tool to stop illnesses before they get hold, why? because the money all goes to the pen pushers.

Waiting lists under 12 weeks?

If you believe that, I have a bridge for sale you might be interested in....

Reality:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-treatment-waiting-times-rise-under-labour-791334.html

"the average time patients wait for an operation has risen from 41 days in 1997-98 to 49 days last year"

The waiting list targets are bollocks because they place minor operations on the same priority level as serious ones.

"The most recent official statistics for the NHS in England showed that more than 550,000 people were waiting for hospital treatment last October. A total of 32,900 had to wait over 13 weeks, while a further 56 had to wait more than 26 weeks.

Figures from the Scottish NHS showed there were 66,080 patients waiting for hospital treatment at the end of March this year.

The most recent statistics for the NHS in Wales showed 46,346 patients were waiting for hospital treatment at the end of November last year, with 460 waiting for 22 weeks or more.
"
www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/120030/NHS-waiting-lists-There-aren-t-any-says-Burnham/

As for productivity:www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/2798796/NHS-productivity-falls-as-spending-rises-by-bil lions-under-Labour.html

"NHS productivity fell by 2.0 per cent a year between 2001 and 2005, according to the Centre for the Measurement of Government Activity, the ONS unit that monitors public spending. That was the period of the biggest funding increase in NHS history.

From 2005 to 2006, productivity fell less quickly, by 0.2 per cent.

From 1995 to 2006, the NHS annual budget more than doubled from £39 billion to £89.7 billion. "

Wasted indeed.

'You can quote waiting times all you want but it still takes 4-6-8 hrs to get through A&E, how is that an improvement?

And try getting an MRI from the nhs, my son was paralysed from a spinal tumour before they even took a look at him, we had to get a private MRI and then when he lost full lower body use they said if we wanted to go privately he could go in the next day, other than that two weeks.'

It used to take a lot longer in A&E. Sometimes all night on trolleys. We're always seen within 4 hours now.
And we had a next day MRI for dd.
I waited 18 months to see a neuro consultant back under the Tories. Then a further 18 months for an MRI. Now I wait 8 weeks and the MRI is within a month.

Course there's probelms - I've just been on the phone to wheelchair services again because dd now has pressure sores from her too-small-chair but I'd rather be under a labour govt. Tories wouldn't give disabled children the time of day and indeed cut benefits for the poorest.
Labour aren't perfect and have continued some truly crappy Tory policies including sucking up to the well off. Its like they cant decide what they want.
But CTC has been a marvel. Any Govt try and abolish it and we lose our house/struggle.

"Tories wouldn't give disabled children the time of day and indeed cut benefits for the poorest. "

I guess you have never listened to David Cameron when he speaks about Disabled children and what he wants to do for them then? Unlike other PM's ( which he will be soon) he has lived with a disabled child in his family ( and sadly lost him ) he more than anyone knows how hard we have to fight for our children and the services they need and he intends to do everything in his power to make it easier for us to get the help we need.

I see no point in pointing to the past and saying 'oh look how evil and bad the Tory's were 15 years ago' because this is now and things change, Blair was a liberal -Tory for God sake not a die hard red flag waving Labourite from the past and that is the trouble with all three major parties nowadays you can mix and match them, mp's who shoould be in the Labour party are now in the conservative party and so forth.

As for trying to abolish the CTC, no one has said they are going to do that, it's just scare mongering.

I have and I don't believe him. Being wealthy he doesn't face what most of us face. He had a nanny and didn't have to fight for respite care etc.
Caring for the vunerable, whether disabled, poor or elderly is not a Tory priority and hasn't been in the past.
Thing is, I don't trust any of them. But I think maybe the Lib Dems should have a go. Just cos its been decades. They could hardly be worse!