Childcare vouchers definitely going...

[morningpaper]

apparently

adding £2,400 to the childcare bill for top-tax earners

Shocking. I thought in principal childcare vouchers are to help people with DCs stay in work, as the amount they pay in taxes (especially when the DCs are too old for childcare vouchers) more than compensates for the tax relief given on childcare.

What's the initiative for going back to work if you could stay at home claiming more in benefits for roughly the same money (for some people?)

Shooting themselves in the foot. Pick something else to squeeze money out of I say. Also the point about helping someone less well off etc etc - aren't those who work already doing that by being taxed on income? Some of those workers who it makes no financial sense to work if vouchers are scrapped will surely become those receiving help - I can't see how it will balance up.

This idiot Brown needs to be shot, hanged, strangled and quartered. Thousands and thousands of women will have to stop working and become SAHMs because they won't be able to afford childcare any longer.

Ah, pleased to see the standard of debate is on the up again.

I REALLY don't want to vote for Cameron but Gordon is making it easier by the day.

We need to make things easier for lower rate AND higher rate tax paying women. We need more women in the very top jobs at CEO level who can lead the way and make real changes that will effect women everywhere such as equal pay, flexible working and equal opportunities for women in the workplace.

Scrapping the vouchers is a bad, vote-losing idea.

Instead GB should take the bonus allocation from banks and install high fees for things that have a negative effect on our society such as speeding, binge drinking in public and violence against others.

Penalising one group of women with children to help another group of women with children is unfair.

Long term, it will penalise ALL women. There will be less reason to return to work on an average salary or even pursue a high flying career in the first place, if they will have to face such high childcare costs.

The childcare system in the uk is appalling and this legislation will only do more harm to women who want choice and flexibility to balance family/working life.

Childcare provision needs complete reform and I only hope that when my girls have their own families we have a workable system that keeps women emancipated.

I honestly despair. WHAT is the point of educating girls , if once they have a baby or two they cannot afford to work because childcare is too expensive? I am educated, experienced and an expert in my field, yet because I worked in the public sector my pay wouldn't cover childcare fees.

The Gov clearly DON'T women to work, otherwise they would invest in childcare for all.

Punative measures like this are a complete slap in the face for all working women. I certainly won't be voting for Brown this is his approach to childcare provision. Makes me absolutely livid . Considering how far we are behind many other European countries, this news is really depressing.

I am so about this.It would help me not one bit to have my two year old in nursery for 14 hours a week because I work full time.I still wouldnt be able to get her there and pick her up because I leave early for work and get back too late, my cm would, which would mean I would still have to pay her the same.Only I wouldnt be getting the £150 a month towards it.Plus I dont really want my 2 year old in nursery to be honest, I think she's fine as she is.

If they are doing this to get children out of chaotic family situations for some time a week then shouldnt they really be concentrating on investing in things like social care which would work to address this directly without penalising everyone else?

Or at least give the choice wether you want your child to go to nursery for free or would rather have the child care vouchers-in this day and age there must surely be some way of doing this.

I hate going to work and leaving my girls but we cant afford for me to be off.This would just make everything that little bit worse.

why do people always think childcare fees should come out of the womans money? surely it comes from both parents?

carrie - the reason people think this way is because the cost of childcare determines whether or not the lower paid worker in the family should go to work or not. i.e. it depends on the marginal cost of them working, compared to staying at home

In my case, it is actually my partner's salary which we use to calculate this, because it's lower. But usually of course the woman's salary is lower

The childcare vouchers mean that I actually take home money at the end of the month. Previously, once nursery & petrol costs were factored in, I was making maybe about £50 a week which isn't a great wage for teaching. We're just above the threshold for tax credits.

Very happy for govt to replace it with a better scheme that benefits all, but just to scrap it will hit us, & many public workers like us, hard.

And I'm afraid it's another reason why Labour will not get my vote this election. God knows who I'm going to give it to though...

While I'm irritated at losing the childcare vouchers, what gets me more is that the new provision of childcare will be based in England. I'm in Northern Ireland, so how on earth is this going to benefit me? Nice as I'm sure it will be for English 2 year olds, why should my Northern Irish 2 year old not be entitled to the same benefits (though as we are educated, working and trying to pay off a house he and his brother probably wouldn't anyhow... but still).
Pah!

But those of us who are self employed don't get the vouchers - we just get to pay the taxes

hiker - starlight said that she lived in the SE. If she's in a similar area to me (commuter belt for London) then 65 pounds isn't unusual. There is nothing for less than 50. 35 pounds might be average, but that's across the whole country.

I am a SAHM partly because it just isn't worth it for us for me to work. It would mean lots of hassle, and once we'd taken out childcare, travel and clothes, I wouldn't actually be bringing anything home.

I'm one of the public sector (NHS) staff who work part time and who, according to GB, form the majority of claimants for the childcare vouchers. I don't earn a fortune but decent childcare here costs £55 a day, and the small amount of tax both myself and my hubby save by both getting the vouchers (which STILL don't pay my full childcare bill) just about makes it worthwhile me going out to work. Just. It won't when I am due to go back to work after my 2nd next summer.

However I think there are two issues here that are being ignored. The first is that in addition to the notional income tax and NI saved by the employee, the employer also saves as they don't pay employer's NI on the £243 - so there's an extra wodge of cash that GB would like to get his hands on.

The second is that new equal opps legislation came into force last October, which means that employers can no longer deduct the cost of these vouchers from members of staff who are on statutory maternity pay or unpaid maternity leave - thereby forcing employers to foot the bill for the childcare vouchers themselves

Now, whilst I am going to benefit from this early next year, even I can see that big employers who run the schemes are going to be pretty pissed. (It doesn't just apply to CCV's by the way but all benefits in kind which are operated on a salary sacrifice system). So I bet that employers are secretly delighted - who wants to pay something for nothing?

Lastly, for those of you that feel strongly about the removal of vouchers FWIW there is a petition on the no 10 website, here it is

I think Gordon Brown needs to rethink this one. We work, we pay 1/3 of our salaries in tax/NI we look after our dc we support schools and what does the blimming labour party want to do:
i) Tax us even more, sleathly and hope noone realises
ii) take away our Child benefit and childcare vouchers
iii)They have'nt got the guts to sort out the educational system but are happy to make criminals of us when we decide to get the school we want for our dc
iv) preach to us on how to bring up our dc but too scared to tackle the parents who are useless
v) use our taxes to pay for childcare for the people too useless to bring up their own children
If he goes ahead with this one I for one will feel I have less of a stake in the welfare state and more resentful of having to contribute towards it.

neenz, I am in a similar position to you.

I earn £30K pro rated. Basically I earn about £90 a day (after tax).

My childcare is £41. My petrol is £4 ish. My car parking is £2 ish. Lets also consider that I have lunch to buy (rarely organised enough to make a sandwich beforehand) and smart clothes to buy (of which I would have no need without work).

Ignoring the food and clothes, work "costs" me £47 a day so I make £43. Not too bad.

Baby no2 due in May. I will then make £2 a day, simply can not justify that!!! I could justify making even £15 a day (with these vouchers) and consider it a few years sacrifice to simply keep my job open. £2 is lunch so I actually lose money without the vouchers. I would not be able to go to work.

Its not about paying big mortgages, its about losing money by going to work and therefore being forced to take a career break or leave.

Yes I know tax pays for NHS etc. But my salary is taxed for that and this was just one small percentage of tax for a necessary commodity (childcare). As it stands, the Government will lose all my taxed salary instead.

Maybe tax credits need to be revised to only consider one salary (the lower one) if the vouchers go.

Bloomin eck, this tax 'break' was put into place to address the immense discrepancy in tax. You can put all kinds of expenses off against tax, but not childcare. It is not optional for most of us, it is essential for us to work. Apparently you can offset a chauffer, but not a nanny.

Even for reasonably well off people, the childcare is a big hit every month. And even on a fairly decent salary two children or more take all your salary.

I know lots of well qualified women who are financially better off not working, and this childcare voucher just about tipped the balance for them for a couple of years. Lots of women work in jobs that are valuable to society and where they have skills and training that society does not want to lose when they have kids.

It used to drive me mad that if I was a cleaner the govt would subsidise most of my childcare via tax credits, but as a professional I got nothing before these vouchers.

We live in such a complicated structure of bloody benefits, tax credits etc. We all need to be accountants these days.

I have an idea. I may take a career break and ask work whether I can still work (for someone else) take a 16 hour a week very low paid job (if there are any left?!) and maybe I will get tax credits?

Then in 3 years, kids at school, I can go back to my job.

I would be a lot better off and still get a break from the hardest job of all, SAHM.

pamelat, you might joke, but I did consider doing this. I worked out if I could take a part time evening job at asda, with or without credits, I would take home more than a senior professional job with childcare.

And get to look after my own kids.

Why did I stop short? I decided that once I got out of my career, it would be hard to get in at the same level.

That is the crux of this for me. I would have worked for free really to keep my hand in. The childcare voucher, because it isn't means tested, is quite a big influence on a lot of middle class mothers.

You would think it was a crime to be middle class in this country. How horrific when they realised that some of us were actually benefitting in some way from this society. Let's put a stop to that right away.

Cloudspotter, sorry I may have sounded flippant but only because it had only just occured to me. In reality I may have to consider it.

I work for the public sector and would be guaranteed the same "grade" of job but not the same job. However my training means that I would likely go back to the same job.

I really will have to consider it.

Actually risingstar, the tax credits are means tested on family income rather than one income, so they aren't worth it on their own. I think when it started we were a fiver over the threshold or something similar.

For me it is more of a feminist thing and perverse incentives. I just hate the way childcare is so expensive and not subsidised at all. It's more of a feminist issue for me than strictly a money one.

And I think I might ban myself from this thread before I turn into Xenia!

40% of 2 year olds getting at least 10 hours a week free childcare within 5 years would be quite something.

I'm a middle income earner who would lose out from the phasing out of vouchers and probably not benefit directly from the new 2yos offer. But with such a tight squeeze on public spending I think the Government are doing the right and fair thing.

Working mothers are the expendable workforce, when the economy was booming the government created these vouchers so that mothers would work. Now unemployment is rising it suites the govt that some women stop working so that the unemployed can take the jobs.

Other groups in the workforce are more difficult for the govt to influence, recent immigrants who have come for work cannot just be encouraged home and older people have retired if they want to/can afford it.

All govt decisions seem to be short term in the UK, but I guess we get the govt we deserve given that we vote for them!

pamelat I'm a public sector employee on a career break after my second kid. And I would have been on 31K a year this year but I left work this August so it sounds like a similar situation. You'll only get tax credits if you are a single parent or your DP/DH is on a low salary. Otherwise, welcome to the world of the SAHM...

The only thing is that the my return to work on a career break is not guaranteed. They have to try very hard to find you another job but if nothing is found within 6 months of my return to work, then they can let me go. Since I'm very specialized, I'm not counting on a job being there in 2.5 years when I want to go back.

abdnhiker, I nearly went on a career break, how do you find it?

cloudspotter wonderful in some aspects, but emotionally devestating in other ways. I keep finding myself thinking I did a PhD for this? Why didn't I do something more flexible? But then every morning at 8am when we're cuddling reading stories on the sofa instead of me frantically dropping them at the nursery and rushing to work for 8:00, it feels so much more human.

I think I'd be much happier if I knew my job would be there when I went back, but the uncertainty means that it feels like a much more permanent thing.