Budget - child benefit

[TheOneWithUnagi]

Some good news in the budget today about child benefit.

Current limit at which you start to pay back via higher income charge is £50k, will move to £60k.

You will get no child benefit over £80k vs £60k now. Between £60 and £80k will taper.

Longer term they will look to tax household income somehow. As this still means 2 people earning £59k each will get it vs one earning £61k won't get it 100%.

Shame there was no increase in £100k limit (although hardly surprising given how this is defended on here!)

For those asking about tapering etc.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-high-income-child-benefit-charge/information-on-changes-to-the-high-incomechild-benefit-charge

Longer term they will look to tax household income somehow. As this still means 2 people earning £59k each will get it vs one earning £61k won't get it 100%.

Thats the part that needs looking at, how is it fair one household bringing in £118k can get CB but a household bringing in £61k can’t. That’s so stupid

Great news. Will make all the difference.

@NHStoPrivate @Danikm151 @DowntonAgain good point, it makes more sense to claim and redistribute yourself.

Tories acknowledging it's unfair having been in power for 14 years 🤷🏻‍♀️

I had to do this a few years ago and it was very easy

But to suggest that you should get more help due to where you choose to live is ridiculous. You seem to be suggesting that people feel some moral obligation to provide doctors and teachers for the capital. They aren’t morally obliged to do this. They have a choice. Move somewhere cheaper. And you’re clearly pointing out their vast wealth if they move and push up house prices so they hardly need more government help if they can simply sell their house and cash in.

@BuffaloCauliflower not sure if anyone answered you but the form is really simple. I do all our banking etc but it’s dh who is over so he has to do the tax form and he managed it very easily.

Yes, it’s still unfair but it’s unfair on less people now. A step on the right direction. I don’t think Tories will win an election though so we’ll have to see what a new government does.

Nothing to stop you moving there to take advantage of the lower cost of living! Although I expect you wouldn’t because of the lower wages on offer 😏

That’s really useful, thank you. We stopped taking the money but are eligible again now and have had a second child so I’ll try and work out how to add him. I couldn’t add him as we didn’t take the money, I got confused before finding out if I could anyway, and gave up.

We earn just under £100k so not one of the 5%.... but that's artificially by ploughing into our pensions instead. Meaning that we pay less tax to get the childcare benefits which are worth about £20k each year. Once again, we pay LESS tax as a result of the policy than we would do if the £100k limit didn't exist - and many others do the same.

FWIW we aren't eligible for child benefit even with this change today but I still think it's a really good change (especially household vs individual income) as the current system is unfair and the thresholds have not kept up with inflation.

Also unfair IMO is the £100k limit - again one person on £101k doesn't get it but a couple earning £198k will do. It's a complete cliff edge meaning people find ways round it, like pension, so they are not worse off by earning slightly over £100k. However there have been a couple of lively threads on this recently and it's very marmite so I'll leave it there!

@TheOneWithUnagi by your own admission you don’t earn just under £100k in gross pay. You just bring your taxable pay below £100k using lawful tax avoidance. I have no issue with this. It is very difficult to create a tax system that doesn’t have cliff edges without also creating an administrative nightmare.

I haven’t seen the threads you refer to, all I was doing is pointing out that only 5% of people hit that figure. It is easy for a lot of people to forget just how much of the population earns £35k or less.

Doesn’t the current (and new as of today) child benefit system work by tapering so as not to create a cliff edge? I don’t see why something similar couldn’t happen for people earning £100-120k for example, to not lose the childcare benefit. The mechanism clearly exists already?

no skin in this game, neither of us earn over £100k but that cliff edge seems like madness to me! I’m sure I read that if you go over £100k, and have 2 preschoolers, you have to earn £130k before you’re actually better off due to loss of the 30 free hours and TFC.

anyway. Good news on the child benefit. I actually agree with the principle of it only being available to lower earners rather than universal, but the fact the £50k hadn’t moved in 13 years was ridiculous. The one vs 2 incomes thing is still unfair but at least there are plans to adjust that. Isn’t that how UC works - on joinT income? - And if so so couldn’t whatever software they use to assess that be used for CB and childcare benefits?

@Twotooto actually the fact I'm born and raised in London and all of mine and my husband's family live in and around London is what keeps us here. Also, the fact that I'm raising a black mixed family so the diversity of London is a non negotiable.

The £ earned is negligible at the end of the month. The salary differential between London and other major cities is negligible compared to the difference in housing and childcare costs. Look it up.

@PSEnny did you even read my post before responding?
I'm not saying those in London should get "more" I'm saying that the threshold for getting CB shouldn't be flat across the country because the cost of living isn't the same.

A £60k Pa salary in Huddersfield goes much further than a £60k salary in Cornwall or London or Edinburgh purely because of the cost of housing yourself in those cities.

Its also teachers, nurses and other healthcare professionals. Cleaners, retail people, bus drivers. Police, fire service, probation officers, prison officers etc etc - they are all needed in London.

Do people outside of London think these people are all high earners and therefore can afford the higher costs?

I just dont get the view that living and working in London makes you a high earner. And London weighting is usually about £3k on a national salary scale.

It is not as simple as ‘sell up, move somewhere cheaper, take a local salary’ etc

I am trying but until someone buys my shared ownership home (which is now more costly because of service charge increases but also has dropped in value so probably wont have a decent deposit) I am stuck in the place where I was born and raised and work in.

London isnt just made up of rich folk that work in the city.

And for anyone interested whilst my salary of 50k sounds healthy it really isnt when raising a child, paying extortionate housing costs, travel, childcare and then the day to day living.

Appreciate my post has slightly gone off topic but it really isnt as simple as ‘choosing’ to move from London.

When salaries are adjusted across the country they can do that. I could earn double what I earn now in London. I’ve chosen not to live in London. You could pay less for your house by living in Liverpool. You’ve chosen not to live in Liverpool.

@Caravaggiouch I don't know your salary but I'd hazard a guess that the "double " you would earn in London wouldn't allow you to live the same standard of life you have now if you were to relocate to London.

Goodness it is annoying hearing people say relocate, relocate... does London not need nurses, teachers, police officers, middle managers, refuse collectors, early years childcare workers ?

Should people with decades long generational ties to the city be pushed out?
If all Londoners earning £100k relocate to cheaper cities the locals in those cities lose out. We saw this when bbc relocated to Salford. Mancunians living in Didsbury and Cholton suffered because Londoners drove up the cost of housing. Relocating is shortsighted and doesn't solve the issue.

@underthebun just to be clear I was totally agreeing with you and the points you were making :)

@Caravaggiouch I don't know your salary but I'd hazard a guess that the "double " you would earn in London wouldn't allow you to live the same standard of life you have now if you were to relocate to London.

It might if DH also earned similarly, but we’re talking about the tax and benefit system and I don’t believe that exists to eliminate differences in standards of living across the country.

Some of us grew up in London and have already had to move out to the suburbs because we couldn't afford to live in our home area post gentrification, where housing isn't quite as expensive but still bloody extortionate and work in the public sector with national pay scales, so no double salaries here. Yes we could all fuck off up north but how do you run a capital city without essential public services and we'd just get blamed for pushing up housing prices elsewhere!

Very surprised to be getting child benefit again, thought I'd put that to bed a while ago! I earn £70k and DH £40k (gross) so we'll get more than half of it after pension, I'm assuming we won't get any or at least as much when it goes to household. Can't say we need it, it'll be going in the holiday pot! But I suppose we are at a relatively cheap time of our lives right now with pre teens, we'd be much more grateful in the pre school years I am sure (or if based in SE).

It should not be more based on where you choose to live. Child poverty rates in all parts of the country are shocking. But you just stick with your attitude that Londoners deserve more than other parts of the country. Transport is significantly cheaper and better in London. Schools are better, London has the highest proportion of outstanding schools in the country. If you chose to have children and live in London this does not entitle you to more money than people with children in other parts of the country. The north has suffered from years of chronic underfunding due to failures to invest in it. London centric attitudes need to stop.

@PSEnny you clearly want to argue refuse to comprehend what is actually being said to you or are unable to (the result is the same).

@TrudyProud people are arguing with you because they don’t agree with you not because they just want to argue. The benefits to you of living in London outweigh any financial penalty and the impact of the high cost of living in London on lower earners is an issue for local government to solve, rather than for national taxation policy to tackle.

Ultimately my view is that it should go back to being a universal benefit.