Abolition of child benefit for higher rate taxpayers is an attack on women

[Cerys36]

The whole point of child benefit is that it is paid to the mother to support the children. It used to be a tax allowance, but it is paid instead as a "benefit" so the mother can receive it - including those who are not in paid work. Abolishing it for families where there is a higher rate tax payer (usually the father) is an attack on women. If you want the higher earners to contribute more, as Osborne says, then increase higher rates of income tax, don't cut CB for families with a higher rate taxpayer.

If the government can't even get this right then how can we trust them with more complex matters? Speaking as someone with no vested interest at all as DS2 will be past CB age when the changes come in and we both earn well under the higher rate tax band I can only draw attention to the worst of the anomalies and wonder how on earth the government could have failed to note them.

If parent on edge of band gets pay rise could be worse off with it than without it.

Separated families where non "custodial" parent is on higher rate tax

Families where they will be better off not cohabiting to retain the benfit - I thought this government was about family values!

In response to the original poster, it is no more an attack on women than it is on couples who chose to have one partner stay at home.
After 20 years of paying into the system and never taking anything out, when our child was born my wife wished to give up work and I supported that wish. I am the sole earner in the household and earn, you've guessed it, 44K. We are most certainly not well off.
The loss of child benefit will have to be made up somewhere - probably by me working yet more hours.
We feel hard done by - after years of paying in and never taking anything out, we're being hit while friends of ours (each earning over 35K) will continue to get this benefit.

jackstarbright, it might not go down well, but it would be a lot fairer, being a much smaller increase for a much larger number of those on higher incomes. For someone just over the threshhold with 2 children this measure amounts to a truly massive tax rise. 5% on earnings over £44k would be very easy indeed to bear by comparison. However, as a political move this one is chillingly astute so you are right on that score for sure.

cazzybabs - do you accept that it is a lot more than most people earn though? Do you need child benefit as much as someone living in the same area as you earning for example 20K a year?

LadyBlahB;ah
"What are the messages to the fathers who contribute F All to lone mothers? NOTHING

Not a sausage"

Here you go, from The Times three days ago:

"As part of the reforms, the government will crack down on fathers who fail to support their offspring. ?We are going to be quite tough on that. People who father kids have an obligation to society to support them,? Duncan Smith said. "

So ye, they are talking about this too.

Zeph - not sure what you mean by politically astute move.

For sure - Tories (and possibly the LibDems) are uncomfortable with the 'affluent' being dependent on benefits. Having said that - I don't think they would have withdrawn CB from (what must be) a significant number of their own voters - if they they weren't trying to 'share the pain'.

However - I'm suggesting that Labour will now be looking at this and wondering if this group (the £45k -£100k earners) has much potential for a decent tax increase.

Yes, talk is cheap

The messages are clear from the actions they have taken

Luckily, we won't get to find out if Labour want to increase our taxes for at least another 4.5 years. :) But if you wanted to put a fiver on it at Ladbrokes I'd say you'd get very slim odds.

And I recant my original remarks on whether this CB cut is an attack on women after watching the footage of the conference yesterday. The well-to-do women sat stony face beneath their blonde bobs and pointedly not applauding clearly felt that Osborne was a bit of an upstart. "We didn't mean sharing the pain with us you fool"

Chil

lucky1979 - no probably I don't but at the end of the month after childcare i am left with £40.

I can't afford the dentist, new clothes for me etc. We don't drive our car lots and I don't own a mobile.

but you are right it won't put us on the breadline but we will have to make serious cuts to out finances

Of course it's an attack on women.

I think people need to remember that for women in abusive relationships (and 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence during their lifetime - more experience other emotional abuse, including financial abuse) that money is often the only funding they have to buy basics for their kids and to squirrel away for when they're ready to leave the abusive partner.

And it's a pretty vile response to say oh well, if these women will go and marry abusive men, more fool them, why should the state help them.

Oh and lucky yes, they're talking about making absent parents support their children. That's all it will ever be - talk. The father's rights lobby are far too strong for anyone to do anythign about the fact that 3/5 of absent parents don't pay any maintenance at all.

"it's a pretty vile response to say oh well, if these women will go and marry abusive men, more fool them...."

It's a pretty odd response to equate a relationship with money troubles with 'abuse'. If anyone is in an violently abusive relationship they should seek and expect help. But, in many relationships (not necessarily including children), you can get one partner, male or female, that's irresponsible with money and it's the biggest cause of break-ups going. It doesn't follow on to say that the solution to that is 'give the woman some money'. Unlike domestic abuse, I don't think couples' finances are anyone's business but their own.

"If anyone is in an violently abusive relationship they should seek and expect help."

Most women who are in abusive relationships, violent or otherwise, don't realise they are for quite a long time.

And er, yes they should expect help, but you'd be amazed by how unforthcoming it generally is. Building more refuges isn't at the top of any government's agenda.

Oh and research is still showing that women spend a larger proportion of their income on their children, than men do. So it's vitally important for children, that women have some income independent of the men they live with, even if it's only the child benefit money.

It's a politically astute move, jackstarbright, because although the effects will be severe on a particular group, it is (a) a relatively small group and (b) not one that the population at large has any special sympathy for. Whereas the fairer move of increasing tax for all higher rate earners would affect (less severely) a lot more people, and in particular would affect a disproportionately high number of natural Tory voters.

I'm not sure it is all that astute politically tbh.

One of the things that people, particularly women, hated about New Labour, was its insistence that the only value women had was in working outside the home. In its tax credits and benefit system, it really disadvantaged SAHMs. And the tories actually had the cheek to criticise them for it. New Labour never went as far as to take child benefit away from single income couples on £40K where one of them was a SAHP though, while leaving it intact for double income couples earning £80K. That seems to me to be a terrible political blunder and will incense the blue rinse crowd.

Complimentary - the point I am trying to get across which i probably didn't do very well is, that we are hard working parents who have always provided for our kids-no matter how many we have-which is not necessarily everyones choice or cup of tea, but we have no benefits involved so I don't think that particular bit is anyone elses business. What I don't like is because we have always worked hard, got educated and brought our kids up to do the same we have actually been punished. We sail close to the wind financially but this is because our older children-who are not classed officially anymore as children because they reach 18- are officially expected to provide for themselves and we are finding it increasingly difficult to provide for them while they are being educated and hopefully in turn don't turn into scroungers. They also work part-time to pay for their clothes and dinners but at the end of the day we still house them and in turn have to cover the costs involved. I wouldn't have entertained being at home with my parents at their ages but times got tough and they don't stand a chance anymore without a lot of support. This is what we try and do for them and as I said it comes at a cost to us. I could abandon them at 18 like a lot of Fathers do when they stop the CSA money beause they think its for their ex and not supporting the kids. I could also send them as adults to the council to house at maybe a cost in housing benefit of 1200 pound between 4 of them a month.We don't, instead we intend to support them until they don't need it.They could do what their friends do and milk the benefit system but we have tried to avoid it so give us a break please and leave the only small child benefit we do get for our youngsters so that we can carry on supporting our "children". It obviously doesn't even end there, again its just a tip of the iceberg i'm afraid and as I said with the unfair treatment we have received in taxes, just because we have around 500 more than this wage supposedly coming into our house. It does not work like that because of the tax and also because by the time earners 500 less than this qualify for all the tax credits, free childcare and so on it means they are so much better off financially.Just stand in our school playground and talk to anyone to find this out!! I am very blessed however to have a lovely family, no matter how much we struggle and no matter how bitter these alleged lower wage earners seem to be they keep all their tax credits out of the arguments and when it comes to the whole income they talk about on here.

In response to lady blahblah- very well put i think especially the bit about absent parents who don't pay, or hide earnings to pay less. It is them that make life for women very hard even if they are not single because the step father then ends up paying for kids that he inherited and probably has his own kids to pay maintenance for aswell. It is very hard for women to work with children especially with unflexible hours and also if they don't have the back up of parents/family that are still alive or healthy enough to help. It then becomes practically impossible. I have tried the lot-work for employer, work at night, get a paper round and self employed and apart from the fact you get some money every angle has a problem, when the kids are ill/days off unexpectedly and so on making you very un-employable. Despite a lot of comments on this website some of actually do like our kids no matter how much we have to give up for them in the way of life-style

I agree with Zepherine.

It's also politically astute because it (supposedly) target a group that could be identified as one the Tory's are (supposedly) fond of. So it acts as window-dressing for all the other, more genuinely revenue-generating, cuts that are sure to come.

It's the one that let's them point and say "We're all in this together". It's a little act of p.r. And as Zeph says, it's a small group, without a lot of general sympathy.

But it sucks, in many, many ways. A rise in tax, would have been fairer, clearer, raised more money .... oh, and widely unpopular.

I would so love this one to backfire, but I don't think it will. Even here on mn I see lots of division about who should be the target of all these cuts; it causes a lot of splintering. It's depressing.

lucky 1979 - i am sorry to say they have said this numerous times and it doesn't happen. You would not believe the battles I have had and still have today to get anywhere with this as they will not find anything out for you but expect you to know every last detail about an ex partner and fund private investigators to do it.Unless the kids pass information on, it is almost impossible to find out where hidden income comes from despite you knowing its happening. There is no back dating unless you were aware straight away of any shortfall or income hiding.Its just a mask to make people think they can get somewhere. Then there are the victims of violence,alcoholics,abusive ex partners that are too scared to do anything for fear of repercussions-then what??Nothing because the Mother ends up still with the child care and knows she should have support but also knows what ill happen if she tries so they are badly off. These are the tip of an iceberg type points that unravel peoples real hardships when it comes to finances.

Can I repeat the statistic here?

3/5 of non resident parents do not pay any maintenance.

3/5.

And the CSA has existed for 25 years.

What does that tell you?

Herbeatititude- well said. Also it is easy for people not in this position to condemn and say leave, seek refuge etc. They control you to a point that you loose all sense of reality and have already isolated you from everyone you know who may help. And then by the way, we would then cost the Government the money they are trying to save!! Help is not there for these people-anyone reading this who has been in this position will know what I mean. It is dangerous, it costs money-a lot of it- to get help, the free services are for support and do not really give you the help you need without going down another dark road-its really tough and all levels of society suffer it, not poor people or middle class etc, you don't just walk into this type of life and ask for abuse

"As part of the reforms, the government will crack down on fathers who fail to support their offspring. ?We are going to be quite tough on that. People who father kids have an obligation to society to support them,? Duncan Smith said. "

So ye, they are talking about this too.

Well about fucking time too.

My ex should be paying 100% more than he currently is, the Australian government agree and will collect it via attachment of earnings, guess where the fly in the ointment is yes the British court order referred to on various CSA documentation doesn't actually exist.

HerB

"3/5 of non resident parents do not pay any maintenance .....What does that tell you?"

Why the Tories are so keen on rewarding marriage??

So fathers can only be expected to support their own flesh and blood if they are living with their children's mothers then jackstarbright?

I see.

And that's why the tories are keen on marriage is it, Jackstarbright? Because they think that the only way to get men to take financial responsibility for their own children, is to ensure that they stay living with the mothers of their children?

Hmm, interesting. You may be right, they do have a cynical streak like that.

Which begs the question of why they are choosing to financially support a family with a double income of £80K and not one with a single income of £45K, when the one with £80K would find it financially less daunting to sue for divorce.

Doesn't add up.