Do you find the child benefit charge unfair?

[fairertaxesnow]

Did you know that in most western countries, couples and families are given the option to be taxed on their COMBINED income, instead of being taxed individually? The reason for this is because it is MUCH FAIRER!

In the UK, taxes are relatively low for individuals, but they do not take into account how many people depend on that income. So a single man/woman with no dependants who spends all their money on themselves pays the same exact amount of taxes than a dad/mom with several children and a partner/spouse who stays at home because childcare is too expensive (or because it is best for young children, as research has demonstrated, or even if it's not their choice to stay at home but they can't find a job!)

Yes, there is (a pretty small) child benefit but this is capped/eliminated depending on the income level, and with only one parent earning money, the family will loose most of the benefit at relatively low income levels.

How is that fair!? This country needs to support families just like the rest of the western countries and not punish single earner families with a parent at home or working part time by placing the highest tax burden on them. Ultimately this affects the children, who are the future!

The child benefit charge is also very unfair, as many people have observed, because single earner families will start loosing their benefit at much lower household income (£50k) than double-earner families (they could earn up to £100k and have full benefits!)

Please sign the following petition to ask our government to modify the tax system to allow families to be taxed on their combined household income, just as most other countries have been doing for decades:

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/216429

Also, please share it with as many people as you can! The government will only respond if we reach 10,000 signatures!

More info:
www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/8365211/Britain-worst-place-for-tax-burden-on-single-earner-families.html
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/11/single-income-families-inequality-workers-fathers-earnings

Thank you to those who have signed already!

I suspect that the reason this hasn’t happened already is that it would need an expensive and difficult IT change to make it happen.

That may be the case but it is not a reason to place the highest tax burden on families with children, don't you agree?

I absolutely agree it should be looked at. I’m just making the point that it’s probably a complex highly costly change from a technology point of view.

It’s not a quick change. It’s years of work.

Thanks, I am glad that you agree it should be looked at. Please sign the petition if you care, every signature counts!!

And I agree with you that it will take some reworking of the tax system but I don't imagine it would take years. After all, there are already parts of the tax system that look at the combined household income (for tax credits) so it would just be a matter of extending that.

There are so many unfair rules and laws, this one is just another one. How about adding up that it is unfair that a step father gets his taxes reduced because of his step-children, but the father doesn't. Unfair that a step-father can be fine in the father takes the children out of school on holiday, but the father won't.

It's unfair that people with second properties can claim tax credits, unfair that children who live next door to a school have to travel to another one because of the admission rules.

I could go on. Sometimes you have to accept that we live in an unfair society (always unfair when it affect us personally!).

"Unfair that a step-father can be fine in the father takes the children out of school on holiday, but the father won't."
That's not the case surely, I thought both parents were fine separately

This is completely ridiculous. Up until the 1980s, married couples in the U.K. were taxed on their joint income. There was a move to make individuals responsible for themselves which is surely what women want! You are suggesting going back to a previous unfair tax system. Also when you combine 2 incomes together, many people would be pushed into a higher tax bracket, so I don’t think you understand what you are asking for.

Sorry op I very much support independent taxation of the individual. If you want to be treated like a two worker family then both work. Family taxation normally leads to big incentives for the second earner not to work - essentially they don't get a personal allowance of thier own - so thier first hours of work are taxed more highly. This is part of the reason why countries with seemingly better family support / childcare actually have worse female participation rates than the UK. It's really hard to make a family taxation system that doesn't either penalise single parents or second earners heavily. I will stick with being taxed as an individual thanks.

I think it is fair. If you have the luxury of a parent at home that’s great. But don’t start grumbling that it’s unfair that in some families both parents work.
And if you are earning the amount that means CB doesn’t apply then you really shouldn’t need it.

The child benefit charge is also very unfair, as many people have observed, because single earner families will start loosing their benefit at much lower household income (£50k) than double-earner families (they could earn up to £100k and have full benefits!)

I always think that this argument about the child benefit threshold, which is always presented by people describing themselves as pro-SAHM, is actually very dismissive of them, because it ignores their contribution. A two-parent family where one doesn't work saves a huge amount in childcare, so they don't actually have half the money of two people earning the same salary.

Where it seems unfair - and where I'd welcome change - is being applied to single parents, who do have the childcare needs. But I don't see why a family with a SAHP needs subsidising.

I agree margaretcavendish - the people it is “unfair” to are the single parents.

but there are lots of things that are far far more “unfair” than this - affecting p

people at the other end of the income scale.

I used to think this too, but changed my mind after reading a similar thread on Mumsnet.

Take my own situation for example. DH is a higher rate tax payer. If we were taxed on combined income this would benefit us overall financially as he would get to to use the rest of my tax band so less of our combined income would be taxed at the higher rate.

When I was on maternity leave, it would have also benefited us, as my personal allowance could have been used too, so saving again.

However, and this is the disadvantage... When deciding whether to go back to work at the end of maternity leave, essentially because DH would have been using all of our combined personal allowance and our combined loweres rate tax band, every penny I would earn going back to work would effectively be taxed at the higher rate, which would mean when childcare costs were taken into account it would not have been worth me going back to work.

Now if I had wanted to be a SAHM this would have been a good thing. But as I wanted to continue working and retain a degree of financial independence, it would have been a bad thing.

Hopefully someone will come along and explain this better than I have

To be fair I agree CB should be capped , 50k is plenty without people getting CB on top which is likely going to be put in a saving account than it been used for it’s purpose. The national average wage is 27k and their genuine families out there that need the CB and can’t just bank it.

I'll probably get flamed for this, but having children is a choice. As a result the parents should pay for their needs. I think the cap
Is a good idea. I'd even go as far as to suggest that child benefit should be abolished and the money distributed to those that actually need it.

I was around for the introduction of the changes which gave me the right to deal with the tax office myself, rather than have any husband do so on my behalf. I would not have married before this change.

Having said that, I do not see what the taxation of couples has to do with the taxation of parents with children.

I am a single parent. I think it is shocking that I am barred from getting child benefit as two parents both earning £45k each -£90k gross (with two tax free allowances between them) still get it.
Furthermore, it wouldn’t be impossible at all to deliver it to those who need it, it could simply be delivered as council tax is - ie you make a declaration that you are a single parent. It is absolutely unfair and should be amended.

I support individual taxation.

I don’t think capping CB is fair. It was much easier to administer because there were no silly charges, fewer people had to do tax returns and it meant that women who needed access to money could get it. Universal benefits are generally better because people who need to access them will.
Making benefits non - universal means you’re less likely to reach those in need and are an administrative head ache to deal with. Look at the nonsense with tax credits.

The government saved little in the grand scheme of things.

Did we not have that system and then it was changed to individual taxation because it was fairer?

I’ll stick to being treated as an individual in my own right, thank you.

@fairertaxesnow, any chance of a clicky link to the petition? I can’t copy it
Thank you

I live in Germany where we are taxed as couples. It's the reason a lot of women don't return to work after having children. For a while I was paying 50% tax on just a few thousand € from teaching evening classes, bringing my hourly rate below minimum wage. I would have been within my tax free allowance in the UK.

When teaching evening classes I met many women in their late 40s and early 50s who'd been out of the job market 15-20 years because the tax system meant they would be paying to work, and they were up shit creek when their higher earning DH buggered off and left them when the kids were teens and they hadn't worked in many years.

I'm not in favour of the current cap

However I'm also not in favour of joint taxation so I won't sign your petition

It was a long hard fight to establish individual taxation in UK

I do not want to see it changed.

What I do want to see is the reversal of the changes to CB assessment. It was wrong to conflate tax status of person A with benefit claimed by person B. If they want to cap it by household income, then they should do so entirely through the benefits system and means testing as they see fit (expensive, didn't want to do that). If they want to base it on tax status, it should be only that if the claimant (didn't want to do that either). So instead omnishambles.

What needs to be done is for CB to be restored as a universal benefit (cheap and easy to administer) but its relative value be allowed to decline (this keeping it affordable) and any 'new' money be put into means tested credits.