Link tax codes for couples -- epetition

[theblancos]

I hope you would like to sign this epetition to the goverment. epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/63221

Couples who co-habit are assessed as a couple where benefits are concerned but are treated as an individual with regards to income tax. This is unfair and penalises those who make the efforts and sacrifices to stay together as a family.

Many couples who only have one partner working for whatever reason are financially penalised by the refusal of benefits due to the level of income from one person even though other families are still able to receive benefits when their joint income far exceeds that of the lone worker.

The individual tax allowance allocated to stay at home, unemployed or low earning partners is not used as they do not have sufficient income to put against it.

This petition is to ask that Married and Civil Parnership Couples should be entitled to claim any unused tax allowance from one partner to the other. This would create a fairer system of taxation that recognises the bond within a family in the same manner that the benefit system already uses.

Blancos - good, but the last paragraph of your op suggests otherwise.

Chunderella I do get what you are saying. I understand that a working family with two adults working may (or may not) have additional costs. However those costs should be targeted directly through tax credits.

I just think that the more you earn the more you should contribute and the less benefits you should get. That isn't currently the case. It's a mess.

If my husband was a single parent, earning what he does, he would be £460 a month worse off than a two parent family each earning half his wage. Arguably he would be more reliant on good quality reliable childcare.

I just think we need to be a bit smarter about the whole thing.

If the system changed to make it fairer there would be no reason to assume that tax credits etc couldn't change also.

It just isn't right that earning less means earning more through skewed tax and benefits.

This would penalise single working parents. Why should someone on the same salary pay less tax than me because then have a stay at home partner?

I do think this would put more pressure on women to remove themselves from the workplace. Woman often are the lower earners and it's not necessarily about having a financially abusive partner but just doing the maths. If you're better off by transferring your allowance to your husband then I think most women would do that. The issue is that it's not necessarily the best decision long term.

This petition also seems to ignore the fact that the tax system does provide benefits to married couples in respect to IHT, for example. Also you can transfer money between you freely which can lead to more efficient tax planning if one partner is a higher rate tax payer.

I can see why people are annoyed by the child benefit issue as it is applied inconsistently but start a petition against that if that's what is bothering you. I don't think changes to income tax are the solution.

Equality floozey why should someone in the same pay bracket pay more tax. Surely it should be the same?

I don't think the tax free allowence should be transferable. I think households should be taxed as one entity. I appreciate this would mean changing the whole tax system and threshold levels.

Tax credits and child benefit should be based on household income.

I just can't fathom how earning more means taking home less.

Women fought for decades for separate taxation of husband and wife. It's a vital feminist issue. The child benefit debacle was a terrible erosion of that principle which many women very much opposed. Let us not have petitions taking us back to the dark ages where women serve, men earn and women don't have their own money. Instead to out there, rise to the top and out earn your man. If someone has to stay home and clean the loos let it be the man.

But if the man is staying home to clean the toilets then it makes sense for him to be able to transfer his tax allowance to his wife. I can't see it as a step back for women.

I think the actual result would be, in the majority of cases, women would transfer their tax allowance to the man and remove themselves from the workforce. Of course, there's nothing intrinsic to the policy that means it would be used more than women than by men. However it's not operating in a vacuum and there are other aspects of society which would effect it. Such as how women, as a group, earn less and are seen as primary carers.

An awful lot of men would feel entitled to their wife's personal allowance, which would reduce her ability to choose for herself. For a certain kind of man it isn't even about the money; it's about having the control.

And the numbers don't necessarily stack up for loads of women (whose earning potential is so often reduced by being out of the workplace for years raising children). If you returning to work (and thus making yourself financially secure) would 'cost' your HRT paying husband £4000 extra in tax, and also require you to pay for childcare, plus commuting costs, clothing costs, pension costs, etc, then it makes it much, much harder for women to go back to work and ensure they don't have to rely on their husband's income.

Yes, it would in fact be a very anti woman move and kicks women in the teeth, ruins their work prospects and consigns them to a life of domestic service entirely depending on men. I would recommend women fight very hard against any such proposals for their own long term good as earners and independent people.

We are very disappointed by the recent comments as it is not our intention supporting this petition to leave women / men at home but the contrary, there are many people who have vocational jobs that are not well paid (ie childcare, nurses, etc) and being able to choose the option to be tax together will allowed them to go back to work as they will be able to pay childcare. Other option will be to don't live together then we will have plenty of benefits.

Women fought for years for separate
Taxation To my mind this would be a backward step Any system always has winners and losers round the edges but to me separate taxation is an important matter for women

Why on earth would it benefit people in low-paid jobs to pool their tax allowance with anyone, or worse still, transfer it to someone else? They'd presumably be using it themselves.

The starting salary for a nurse is about £20k. You'd use your tax-free allowance of £10k and then pay 20% tax on the rest. Even if you are a clinical support worker, you'll want your personal allowance to reduce your tax liability on your salary of £14k ish.

How this would help them go back to work or pay childcare is utterly beyond me. Do you somehow imagine that all these women have husbands who earn well over £40k (thus making it better for their wife to be taxed on 100% of their salary at 20% so they pay less tax at 40%)? Because that's far from the reality for most people in the country.

It would benefit us! And thousands like us. As long as the lower paid worker retained control of their own tax code.

Dp earns 50k, I earn 10k. Our tax bill is 2k more than a couple earning 30k each or a 40k/20k split. That 2k would be a big help to reduce the crippling commuter fares of dp, currently having to earn 10k gross to just to pay them.

I've been thinking about this all day and while I still don't think it is fair that some people pay significantly more in tax for the same income. I cannot think of a way to split the tax system that would be fair on both single parent families and families with only one income. I appreciate there may be a way. I'm no accountant.

It would reduce the disparity if the 40% tax rate threshold were significantly higher though.

On a separate note, I can understand why not having the tax system assume that your pay etc and therefore your tax exemption belongs to your husband. However I think it is a different issue to state that a person cannot make that choice if they wish too. Yes some men are controlling and would demand to use the tax free allowance but then surely they would be controlling with all money anyway. Should we ban joint accounts or make it so that pay can only go into single accounts to protect women or vulnerable partners?

I do take the point though that overall, unemployed women have less control and security then their partner if they work. I do think, from my own experiences at least, that some people don't think about the long term issues with coming out of the jobs market, wasting qualifications or assuming they will be taken care of. However surely the reasons for this and the reasons why they have chosen not to work and their partners do, is far more complex than a tax break.

It is fair that everyone, individually, on the same income pays the same in income tax though. Their partner (if they have one) pays the same amount if tax as someone with the same income as them. When you go out up work, you do it as an individual, not as one half of a couple. So you should be paid (and taxed) as an individual. Just because you go home and contribute some (or all) of that to the family doesn't change that.

And it's not just controlling partners that is the issue. It's the generalised idea that your tax allowance 'belongs' to your partner that would be promoted. Let's not exacerbate the idea that women's work is only ever supplementary to her (male) partner's. Patriarchy is strong enough as it is without reinforcing it through the tax system.

The benefits/tax credits issue is completely separate.

The principle is very important. We started with women on marriage having to give all their property to their husband. He owned it all. Women fought against that and got I think a married woman's property act. Then we had many professions where women were not allowed to work in them at all like law (our brains were arguably smaller or something so we could not learn the case law or whatever). We fought that and won in about 1920. Then on marriage even teachers had to give up their work even if no children. My mother, a teacher, luckily just escaped that and indeed supported my father for ten years from her earnings when he was a student doctor.
Then we still have combined taxation of husband and wife with the implication if you marry your income is in effect owned by your husband, he earns and keeps all the money and might give you a tiny allowance if you're good, clean his house, mind his babies and give him some sex. That is our background. Women fought really really hard to separate taxation. In some couples people keep their own money. The principle that you do not even have to tell your spouse what you earn was hard fought by many women. Let us not lose it now. Couples are not one person. They are separate adults who can support themselves.

As soon as you have transferability of allowances you have a big cut in that principle that we are separate adults rather than owned by a husband.

Secondly sadly many husbands will then use that as an excuse to say there is no point in your working darling as if I have the allowance I can set it against my tax at 40% and if you work no one is home to wash my socks and he will suggest childcare costs are all his wife's obligation when in fact the man needs childcare too and the cost of that and arranging it ought to be in part his job. It will result in many more women unable to reach the top of their careers, stuck at home doing everything.

Thirdly it is very unfair on single parents. Are we going to let them exchange allowances too? I live with 2 adult children at present and the younger ones. If I have a student or young adult child at home not using their allowance or someone has their mother at home who has dementia should we not also allow that non working person's allowance to be transferred? If not why the distinction - is the distinction all about sex - if you provide sex to a partner then you should be free to give them your allowance?

It's not 'our' tax bill. It's my tax bill and his tax bill.

I agree greengrow, everybody should be allowed to use their personal allowance in whatever way they choose. My original post was along those lines. Lone households won't be any worse off then they are now, they just won't be better off.

But lone parent households are already proportionately worse off than two-parent households. Even if something doesn't make them even worse off, how can it be right to make a change that makes those already better off than them more better off than them? How is that 'fair'?

People may not be taking advantage of their personal tax allowance, but they still have it; they just aren't using it. Families could use both personal allowances if they decided to organise their lives differently.