Petition to put a halt to the planned child benefit/tax credits cut and introduce an "upper earnings limit" instead

[donnaw25]

Hi,

I have started a petition that I intend on sending to 10 Downing Street (if enough signatures are collected) to try to put a stop to the Government cutting out child benefit and child tax credits and instead introduce an "upper earnings limit" to stop overpaid celebrities, PMs and even the MP himself from taking all of the Country's money and leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces through cuts.

If you agree with me, the petition can be found here: www.gopetition.co.uk/online/36972.html
Thanks in advance to all those who are in agreement and sign.

I couldn't edit my original post but changed the petition wording very shortly after it went live, but obviously Go Petition did not update this until several hours after.

After a rethink, I realised that the upper earnings limit suggestion would have very little impact on the situation but instead highlighted a report of how much of tax payer's money was used to fund celebrities appearing in Government campaigns etc. It is this kind of thing that should have a cap.

The original plan was to cut child tax credits to households earning £50k + which I aagree was a sensible level, but it is now being suggested that the level is lowered to £26k and anyone who is still entitled to tax credits will receive a lower figure than they currently do.

Whilst £1055 p/a in child benefit may not have an impact on some families, it does on others and for some, it is the difference between being able to afford the every day bills and not. Child tax credits are in place to help working families with the cost of childcare - by cutting back on these, all that will be encouraged is new mothers not to return to work.

i suggest we leave the intricacie of who earns what ,to those who know what they are doing.....i.e the new government.

give them a bloody chance to correct it first before you start bandying 'petitions' around!!

foreverastudent "Just because someone has 'worked hard' to get into a high paid position doesnt mean that those who earn a pittance dont work just as hard (if not harder).

Define 'work harder'. In which way? My DH has often worked 12-14 days on the trot doing 12hr shifts in all kinds of weather then comes home to be a husband and father and deal with all of the things other people in every other family deal with. He has worked himself into the ground at times to get into the position he is in now and he deserves every penny he earns.

I am not saying that people who earn less don't work hard but I earn less than DH and I don't have the stress of the responsibility that he does - with an increase in salary comes an increase in responsibility. In his role if someone dies through a health and safety accident he will be the one up in court. Can you give me an example of where someone may work harder than him who earns far less money doing a similar role? It has to be like for like, surely?

OP - get your facts right. CTC has nothing to do with childcare costs. The childcare element of WTC does that, and cuts to that have never been mentioned - unless you know something I don't?

In fact why not pay everyone a flat rate salary on the basis that "everyone works hard"? That way, none of us would have to work hard at school, bother to go to university and work hard for a degree or bother to go the extra mile in our careers. We could all sit back safe in the knowledge that none of this would make any difference, because as long as we're prepared to turn up for work when we're an adult we'll be looked after just fine.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7145163.ece

"Mr Cameron makes specific suggestions for savings from welfare-to-work or from restricting child tax credits to families on less than £26,000 a year."

There are numerous other articles indicating the same thing. My husband and I earn just below this threshold between us so would ultimately not be affected but a cut in the amount we receive would hinder us financially.

I somewhat agree with your comments on taking on a job that cannot cover the cost of childcare but I do think that families should be able to juggle being a parent and still having a career. I myself only work part-time but it is nice to be able to still have my foot in the door of employment and at least try to pay my way in life. I also believe it does my son good to be around other children of various ages as it is building his social skills. I am not on a poor hourly rate but must admit that I do rely on the tax credits we receive along with the child benefit to cover our every day outgoings and we certainly do not have luxuries, so every penny is essential.

"After a rethink, I realised that the upper earnings limit suggestion would have very little impact on the situation but instead highlighted a report of how much of tax payer's money was used to fund celebrities appearing in Government campaigns etc. It is this kind of thing that should have a cap."

That "report", in fact a Daily Mail story which is probably more than a little biased, highlights that £325,000 was spent on celebrities for Government ad campaigns.

While that may well be too much when the Government is looking to make £6 billion worth of cuts it's an absolute drop in the ocean and a complete irrelevance.

Do you really believe that cutting the spending on celebrity adverts will make any kind of difference that would let cuts to tax credits or child benefit be cancelled?

And how much would be spent on maintaining and enforcing the cap?

How much would have to be spent on advertising anyway?

Pointless.

Minthumbug - that is exactly what I am talking about. Two years ago we were a few days into our family camping holiday in France and DH was called back to work and was told to be onsite for 8am the next morning.

Trying to organise to get him to a ferry port, back to the UK and car hired on the other side was a nightmare but it is his job and we just had to suck it up. We stayed on our own - I just have to accept it as part of his job.

As he has his own company now he works for clients. He often is not able to accompany us on family functions, works on more paperwork when he comes home and regularly gets no more than 4-5hrs sleep in any 24hr period. That is not to mention the administration of running his own company that comes with it.

Oh, a petition. That will have the Cleggathon trembling now, won't it?

Maybe the people whinging now ought to have thought a bit harder about this before putting their X in the boxes on 6th May.

You reap what you sow.

BadgersPaws, it was an example of the type of thing our money is being wasted on. I am not saying £325k is going to even touch the deficit, but I dare say there are many, many other examples of this time of expenditure and all these things add up.

Gaelicsheep, if the childcare element of WTC is not going to be affected then I apologise, I have got the wrong end of the stick. My heart is in the right place though and I am only looking at this from a mum of (soon to be) 2s point of view. I never intended to offend or pee anybody off in any way.

It just makes me laugh, do people really think that Steven Gerrrard who pays around £40k a week in tax really sat there after the birth of his children and said to Alex now here's that child benefit form for you to fill out so we can claim our £25 a week ?

OP needs a few basics in economics. And the removal of some very large blinkers.

Do you know what? Forget I ever posted this message and I'll delete the petition too. Let's all sit back and let the Government shove us all into yet more financial turmoil. Some of you need to learn a few basics in how not to be rude.

donnaw25 so basically my husband's taxes pay for your tax credits so that you can go back to work - but I don't get any help (we're just over the threshold) and as a result (because my salary was less than the cost of childcare for two kids) I have to stay home. You say "it is nice to be able to still have my foot in the door of employment and at least try to pay my way in life". Keep in mind that this is not available for families like mine and your desire to take away my child benefit because of our family income when our taxes help you have opportunities I don't get really frustrates me.

And for what it's worth - yes my DH does well for us but he's often away, on no notice, we have very little job security (he's self employed). We are very nervous about me not working because if something happens to his job, I'm not going to be as employable.

But I'm not upset at paying tax in general nor do I think the country can afford to give us childcare tax credits (it can't and that's the way it is). We chose to have our kids and we have to take care of ourselves because we're lucky enough to be able to. If the government really does need to take away our CB then we'll manage that too.

It would be nice though if people didn't resent families like ours and at the same time feel entitled to things that we don't get. Many of us could do with a dose of being thankful for what we have.

Try net mums Donna, it'll probably go down a treat there.

"Forget I ever posted this message and I'll delete the petition too. Let's all sit back and let the Government shove us all into yet more financial turmoil. Some of you need to learn a few basics in how not to be rude."

What did you expect?

The original petition proposed an idea, a salary cap, that was quite clearly impractical and ill conceived and then it was watered down to be little more than a complaint that child related benefits should not be taken away alongside an irrelevant pop at celebrity adverts.

If we are to stop the Government pushing us "all into yet more financial turmoil" then we need to start putting forward ideas that could work and being ruthless with those that while perhaps well intentioned just wouldn't work.

good post abnhiker, it really annoys me as well

There is no clear link between gross income and disposable income - I know for a fact that I have significantly lower disposable income and many 'lower' income families than ours because of the childcare bills and the fact that I don't qualify for tax credits - why should I lose the child benefit as well

"Do you know what? Forget I ever posted this message and I'll delete the petition too. Let's all sit back and let the Government shove us all into yet more financial turmoil. Some of you need to learn a few basics in how not to be rude."

I think the first rule of posting on public websites is to have a thick skin. If you're asking people to support your position and sign up to a petition you have to explain yourself a lot more clearly and convincingly than you've done. Otherwise it's a case of 'ask a stupid question.....'

If you don't want financial turmoil then keep thinking up ways to improve the situation. Just do your homework a bit better next time.

I've always wanted to be the guy on the radio that Aitch speaks of. That is the system I would like to see.

abdnhiker, complete wrong end of the stick. Where I have said I agree with child benefit being abolished is beyond me - this is something I was fighting to keep in place!

I have requested this thread is removed so you can all go back to discussing whatever it was you were discussing before all guns came ablazing in my direction. I'm done here.

wait - is child benefit actually going?

'There is an oversupply of highly skilled labour in the UK. If all these 'superrich' people left there would be plently of others willing and just as capable of doing a good job who would happily take £80k.'

Err, where is this oversupply?

If earnings were capped at £80k, and all the decent doctors fucked off to America to work for £200k a year, then what?
Nurses all get sent back to college for a year?

The basic laws of supply and demand mean that if there were hundreds and thousands of able and qualified people waiting in the wings, these jobs would not be offering £80k a year at the moment.

The truth is they need to offer high salaries to attract capable people. And the high salaries also need to be there as an incentive for people to do the relevant training throughout their career