Tax Credits

[Janto]

Today I discover I will be £83 a month worse off due to the latest budget ! I don't earn anywhere near the £40k limit mentioned, but having spoken with the Child Tax Credit people it seems that there is a tapering system below this which has been reduced by 41%.

Great ! Absolutely chuffing marvellous! I'm working full time for virtually nothing !!!

Sorry, needed to moan !

It's probably no reassurance.... but if you have full-time employment you're better off than a lot of people today. If you're still working when your child/ren go to school your child-care costs will reduce substantially and chances are your income will have increased slightly at the set time. You're setting a great example to your child/ren (especially any female ones) that women are independent and hard-working. And if you were to stop working now because the costs and the income are similar then you might find, in a few years' time, that you'd have trouble getting back into employment at the same level. And all this assumes you're a single parent and aren't sharing the costs of child-care with a partner or husband.... If you are in a partnershipe and regard child-care as exclusively 'a cost to the woman' that wouldn't make sense.

The 'tapering' part incidentally is that the award tapers away more steeply if you're in that £25k - £55k household income bracket than it did before. For households earning more than £42k it effectively means a zero award.

Chil's right, it's better to look at the long term picture

I always try to think what would happenif we had no tax credits , ifthey got scrapped, could we cope etc
I hate relying on them

You're right Chil/Compo - thanks. I keep reminding myself that its only for another few months then I'll only be paying for before and after school and school holidays. Its just niggles me that I see old school friends on social networking sites with numerous children, but who don't work or only work a few hours but who are out every weekend, having holidays, buying new clothes etc etc. Still never mind, onwards and upwards !

I used to think that about friends buying clothes and taking fancy holidays etc., but have since discovered most of it was lobbed on credit-cards or bank loans :) Childcare definitely gets cheaper once they start school and just need the bookend care. My DS is starting secondary school this September and, with any luck, we should be able to ditch childcare completely for everything except some holidays. Keep smiling....

im £85 a month down due to tax credits going down and im on carers allowance and unable to work till my son is statemented and in a suitable special school id worked all my life till my only a year ago when the hospital admissions/school problems got worse and now im being punished for it!

'I'll only be paying for before and after school and school holidays'

Our local places cost £25 per day per child for holiday care. Cheaper than nursery, but still a bit of a hit if you have to work most of the holidays.