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

I lost interest when you kept repeating loose.

It is LOSE. Loose money is small change.

And if you can't afford kids, then don't fecking have them!

Women wanted this set up. Now they have it they don't want it.

Typical.

No we do not want to return to being taxed as couples. That was unfair and oppressive to women.

I would be in favour of an additional tweak to the rules that said that if a single parent receives no support at all from the other parent and there is no shared care (eg if the other parent lives in another country and wants no involvement, or is dead) then the trigger point for removing CB should be higher.

Couples with one person working and one not should not receive any additional subsidy from the state for this enormous privilege. Rather the opposite - I think that these situations should be treated as if the person with the income is employing the person who is at home out of their post-tax income, and the second person should therefore be liable for income tax as if they were earning the national average wage for full time work. Why should the exchequer lose out because someone has the luxury to choose not to be economically productive?

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.

I would love the OPTION to be taxed jointly with my husband. I don’t earn enough to pay tax; he is a higher rate tax payer. If you add our salaries together we earn significantly less than our neighbours who earn around £90k between them. BUT they pay less tax than us AND get full chil benefit.

They get £90k gross between them - tax is £6600 each, £13200 overall.

DH pays £14360 in tax. If our two incomes were added together (£78000) and shared between us we would each pay £5430 tax, £10860 overall AND we’d get the CB back!

It would make perfect sense for me, many of my friends, to have joint family taxation.

Sorry I won't be signing.

While I agree that the CB cap is unfair in that the cap should be the same across the board not one family on 90k receiving it and one on 51k not I don't want to be taxed as a couple as a whole.

Also, why shouldn't a single person spend all their money on themselves, it's their money. OP seems to b implying that a single person should be taxed more than a family? Why is that? Why should the single person subsidise families? Cost of living for a single person is already higher.

@YimminiYoudar Rather the opposite - I think that these situations should be treated as if the person with the income is employing the person who is at home out of their post-tax income, and the second person should therefore be liable for income tax as if they were earning the national average wage for full time work.

Actually that’s a great idea! If my DH could have treated me as an employee (for the 15 years I was SAHM) then my ‘wages’ would be removed from his taxable income pushing him back below the higher rate threshold. I would then have been able to use my personal allowance and pay tax on the remainder at basic rate (and NI obviously) AND still claim child benefit! Would have been quids in!

I am low paid, DH high earner, we don't get CB (well, not the money, but claim anyhow forthe pension protection) - but we made those choices so I am available to drop everything and go if needed for the kids.

I much prefer being taxed as a person in my own right, not lumped in with DH thank you, so I would never sign the petition. Women have fought to NOT have their tax affairs taken over by their husband. Joint tax affairs only benefit couples whose earnings are disparate.

I find it hard to get worked up about a few people getting a little bit more money than me because of a loop-hole when we don't get it because DH earns over £50k.

What will happen is that they will get less - we will not get more. So signing the petition is asking the government to think about taking money away from some people to even things up. Seems petty to me.

@Joanna57 the argument if you can't afford kids don't have them is easy to spout but many people's circumstances change post children being born.

I was a two income household higher rate tax payer when DS1was born. Roll on two years I was a no income single parent with 2 DC. XH walked out DS1 disabled and couldn't get childcare so I had to give up work.

Yes! My husband earns £55k, I earn £11k and so he has to pay back a proportion of child benefit yet a couple earning £45k each which is £24k a year more than us wouldn't. 🤬

You could argue that a couple both in full time work and earning 45k each need child benefit more than an individual earner of 50k with one partner in part time work / not at work, simply because they will need to pay for more childcare.

Actually that’s a great idea! If my DH could have treated me as an employee (for the 15 years I was SAHM) then my ‘wages’ would be removed from his taxable income pushing him back below the higher rate threshold.

Why would it come out of his pre-tax income? If you pay a nanny or a cleaner you do it from your post-tax income, so this would be the same.

What about if each child had a tax allowance with a transferable element, like the transferable spousal element, so in a household with one higher earner their threshold to lose child benefit would go up.

I would love the OPTION to be taxed jointly with my husband.

Well, yes, I imagine people being completely free to pick and choose what they do with their tax free allowance would indeed be popular, because it would be a huge tax cut. That's not going to happen, and doesn't seem to be what OP is advocating.

I support individual taxation and the scrapping of CB, it should be rolled into existing benefits and targeted at those who need support, not for those for whom it's just a bit of extra spending money.

BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou no it would not be tax deductible off the first person's income, it would be taxed twice, first as the first person's income and then again as the second person's income. Which is fair because it is being income twice just as if the first person was employing an unrelated cook/nanny/housekeeper

BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou no it would not be tax deductible off the first person's income, it would be taxed twice, first as the first person's income and then again as the second person's income. Which is fair because it is being income twice just as if the first person was employing an unrelated cook/nanny/housekeeper

Odd. My brother used to employ his partner to do the admin for his business. The money he paid her was tax deductible. A friend of mine employs his daughter as a cleaner. The money he pays her is tax deductible. I worked for a friend for a while and my pay was tax deductible.

You could argue that a couple both in full time work and earning 45k each need child benefit more than an individual earner of 50k with one partner in part time work / not at work, simply because they will need to pay for more childcare.

You could argue that but surely once children are over secondary school age you no longer need childcare. Plus when those “children” go to university they cost the higher earner more because those children aren’t entitled to the same amount of maintenance loan (regardless of whether or not the parents are either willing to or capable of subsidising their near adult offspring) and the parents are still considered responsible for health costs (prescriptions, dental etc) until they are at least 21.

I’m not saying that my family need the extra money, we are fine without it but that is because we bought a house young and paid off the mortgage before our eldest left school so we can make up the slack BUT when I had my family child benefit was for ALL children and the. It got removed. Also when I got married I claimed married persons allowance (DH wasn’t working) then that was removed as well.

It’s great to have the RIGHT to individual taxation but I also have the RIGHT to marry someone of the same sex - it isn’t compulsory though I can CHOOSE the option that suits me.

@BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou

The examples you give are of a business paying for a service, so that they count as cost of running the business and can be deducted from the business turnover before profit and hence tax is calculated for the business.

This is not the same as someone's income on which income tax is payable.

HTH

There are so many things that are tax deductible on his tax return - including paying to have his tax return done which I do for free. Perhaps I should start charging him for that... at the moment the only tax deductions he claims are for some charitable donations.....

Of course I do appreciate the “privilege” I had as a SAHM in the early years.. the privilege of not being able to afford much once mortgage and bills were paid. The privilege of not wasting time with hair appointments or holidays (couldn’t afford them). If I did it over I wouldn’t change a thing but not all SAHMs are flush, I made the sacrifice because it was what I wanted for my children, DH is in the great position he is now because he had me doing it all behind the scenes so he didn’t need to do anything except work hard to get where he is. Being able to use my tax free allowance or even just a small amount of married persons allowance would have been great but that was all scrapped because I have the COMPULSORY RIGHT to be independent.

Big NO from me.

You can already transfer some of your personal tax allowance to your husband. (And its an outrageous waste of money by the government who don't even advertise it anymore the whole idea of incentivising marriage is so cringeworthy.)
I agree with the CB cap, you have to earn quite a bit over £60k to lose all CB and while I don't agree its 'fair' compared to 2 earners getting £55k or so not being effected at all, I think it needs changing to make it fairer not scrapping.

I am a SAHM and yes we have altered our lifestyles so no luxuries etc but thats our choice. Its not really a 'sacrifice' to be honest. That sounds awful. In a year or two I hope to pick up a little part time job which will probably use up most of my personal allowance. Some people are very unwilling to take responsibility for themselves. If you don't like your choices, change them.

You can already transfer some of your personal tax allowance to your husband.

Only if he earns less than £46000.

I kind of think the burden of taxation should fall heavier on families rather than childless individuals as they use the services more. And I say that as a person with three kids.

Thank you for all your comments, there are a lot of good points here but also quite bit of missinformation, I feel.

@swingofthings , yes, life is not always fair but I don't think we should stop striving for a more fair society! If we just sit and "acept it", those who make the rules will slowly but surely take advantage and make the system more and more unfair. People need to speak up, let their struggles be known, and it is the government's job to make the system work and be as fair as possible.

@jeanne16, I feel women were completely conned by the government when the tax system was revised. It went from women being mandatorily included in their husbands tax return, which is clearly wrong, to completely independent taxing in which many women actually lost out.

I am not suggesting that they return to an old and flawed taxing sytem, but that they look at what most other countries in the developed world are doing and provide a fairer tax that supports families instead of penalising them. For example, in the US, Spain and other countries, couples are given the option of being taxed individially OR as a couple. The system is made very fair by having a different tax allowance and tax brackets for the combined income versus individual incomes. For example, the tax free allowance for a couple is not double that of an individual, but about one and a half. Families are more protected and nobody loses out because you can choose how you want to be taxed. Single people don't complain in those countries that families are given too many tax breaks

@sothisisspring, the tax free allowance that you can transfer is only around £1000, which hardly makes a difference. And also, as @BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou, even that small benefit is lost as soon as the other person earns a bit more.

I kind of think the burden of taxation should fall heavier on families rather than childless individuals as they use the services more.
The flaw in that argument being that childless individuals aren’t making personal sacrifices to provide the young workforce that will be needed to take care of them and pay their state pensions in old age (state pensions are funded by the government on tax receipts).

I remember losing CB many years ago when it was decided higher rate taxpayers would no longer be eligible . Fair enough .
However I felt a bit miffed that a couple of standard rate taxpayers who collectively had more net income than myself were not affected .