How much so far has your family been charged to deal with the deficit?

[LilyBolero]

We hear a lot about the deficit. The banks are still dishing out the bonuses ( Barclays pays bankers 220k each

So - how much SO FAR have you as a family been charged to deal with the bankers' disaster? Don't include VAT rises, as that isn't really measurable, but maybe everyone reading could remember the VAT and NI rise! Do give a ball park figure of your income, and try and explain figures (eg with Uni fees, it is 9-3k, as 3k was already in existence, interest is impossible to calculate, so state what the fee total is and say 'plus interest').

I'll start;

Household income - c.45k, take-home pay of about 35k a year, to cover housing, utilities, council tax etc

Child Benefit loss - at the moment 3k a year (4 children). Total loss of revenue assuming child benefit remains static, £36000 (calculating from current ages of children, from when cut is imposed)

University fees - assuming each child does a 3 year course, fees of £72000 in total, not including interest. If dd does medicine as she wants to, that will be another 18k at least on top of that. I haven't included living expenses because they so far have not changed, and they can live at home and attend the local university, which fortunately for us is a top uni.

Others; Child trust fund (which I agree with cutting) - £250 for each of 3 younger children - = £750

So, so far, we as a household on a moderate income (on the IFS calculator we as a HOUSEHOLD are on the 34th centile - ie 66% are better off) have been charged £108,750 . To put it another way, dh will need to work for nearly 4 years for FREE just to cover the charges from the Government. And we did NOTHING to cause the deficit - no credit card bills, modest mortgage, paid off fast, and I'm quite sure there are people far worse hit than us. But we are being charged £108,750 whilst the bankers who arguably DID cause it are receiving £220,000 in bonuses THIS YEAR.

Cameron and Clegg talk about fairness. I'd like to see them justify this!

Just to add, the 72k for uni fees is not the total fee paid, it's the total RISE in fees.

Lily, we've calculated that by 2013 we will be £6000 a year worse off due to child benefit, ESA (removed because of household income being over the minimum) and paying at least £500 a year more in tax and NI.

Good to see that our household income is in the bottom third but because we are a single income household we are considered well-off enough to not need our child benefit or any tax credits...

Not even thinking about university just need to get through the next few years.

And before I get flamed for being rich I'm not saying that I'm poor, we're not going to be on the street any time soon BUT we will lose 14% of our income which is twice as much as the IFS has estimated the average impact will be. That is a big impact on our life.

The tax increases to 50% and the loss of our personal allowances will cost our family a small fortune.

The loss of other stuff is minimal in comaparison.

What I want to know is why the hell did Gordon Brown not insist upon stringent conditions when he bailed out the banks?????

DH is paying £8,500 per year more tax as no longer gets a tax free allowance, plus tax increase over £150k or whatever it is, plus paying tax now on bonuses going into pension pot. So altogether about £25k pa or thereabouts worse off.

It's going to get worse, I suspect. Although in theory we'll lose CB, Ithink that doesn't come in until ds would be too old to get it anyway.

20% VAT will obviously have an impact come January.

I pay about £3k more in income tax and lose CB. So about £5k total.

My DH will lose his personal allowance and be impacted by the 50% tax band and extra NIC (total £30k pa). He also loses tax benefits on his pension contributions (another £10k pa). So £40k total. He will also be taxed at 52% on any bonuses if he brings money onshore but he clearly won't!

Assuing we buy house next year, stamp duty moving from 4% to 5% will cost another £20k.

So expect to pay in 2012 extra £65k in tax minimum.

Extra Uni fees for 2 or 3 children assuming extra £6k per year for 4 years, probably another £50-75k.

I agree with most of what OP said. Although this deficit is not entirely the bankers fault. The Labour party massively overspent and nearly left us bankrupt.

Most of what we are now suffering can be laid firmly and squarely at their doors, doesn't make it any better tho does it?

Agree with most of what the OP says, although the situation we now find ourselves in is not entirely the bankers fault.

The labour government massivley overspent and nearly left this country broke. So what we are suffering now, is in a large part to do with the labour administration. Doesn't make it any better tho does it?

LilyBolero If the personal income of the highest earner is just a little bit over the 40% threshold, then there is no reason you should lose child benefit.

Put a bit more into your pension, to take you under the 40% tax threshold, and voila.

lfn, we have looked at that, but because they are lowering the HRT threshold, it wouldn't work for us to put more into pension, we are in the worst possible position.

These are tough times. The deficit costs every family directly in massive debt interest. Together, we Brits are paying £43 billion in tax this year just to cover debt interest. The annual cost of the national debt to Britain's families will rise to over £70 billion by 2015. That's nearly £50 a week for every British worker.

When you think that child benefit cuts, which got so much press, will raise only £2.5 billion, you realise there's a massive untold story here. Sadly, we have to go through cutbacks - to prevent our children suffering even higher levels of debt interest. Borrowing more money for higher benefits now would be irresponsible.

There's plenty more analysis on these issues on our blog. Best wishes to everyone.

DP and I both work in the arts, both could well be out of a job by the end of 2011.
So, potentially our entire income.

And from having gone from a position where the small gvt investment enables us to lever in extra funds (in admissions, space and facility hire, charitable grants etc) to make a net contribution (in terms of VAT, training young people, projects with young offenders that are more than 80% successful in getting them to abandon crime and go back into education, training or jobs, and in terms of economic benefit to the surrounding area of our respective venues), we will represent a net deficeit - on benefits.

If this doesn't happen to us, it will happen to other families in the arts instead - over 100 orgnisations will be cut completely by the Arts Council.

I don't mind coughing up towards the deficit but I am furious that I paid the Labour government to create it in the first place. All those extra thousands in stealth taxes I've been paying for the last 13 years to combat child poverty and help 'hard working families' were totally wasted and that makes me incredibly angry. We weren't in a strong position when the inevitable recession came and, even if we hadn't given the banks one red cent, we'd still be looking at massive overspending today.

Marry Labour, repent at leisure...

I'm ever so slightly better off. Lowest decile, self employed single parent.

We'll lose CB, and DH's tax bill has gone up by about £3k a year.

Can I just point out that Barclays, along with HSBC, did not take advantage of any government money and therefore can pay who they like, what they like.

Chil - agreed. We are a lot worse off due to all Labour's stealth taxes and pension fund stealing than we are because of these cuts.

We're in the same boat as mumblechum. OH will be taxed at 50% with no tax allowance, no child benefit, not aware of the bonus/pension changes but assume that will impact us too. Getting an extendion done next year so 2.5% VAT will add quite a bit to that bill. Yes we'll be loads worse off. Maybe we should use state school and the NHS and save ourselves some money.

Not sure, joint income of about £82K, no mortgage and kids to old for CB. One kid final year at uni and one in full time employment.

Apart from the VAT increase it does not appear to hit me at all.

Litchick the 50% band is social justice, it should kick in at £70k.

The VAT rise will increase my costs but other than that I think I'm relatively unscathed.

A banker getting a £220,000 pound bonus doesn't get it from the government and pays in 110,000 in tax.

OP what time period is that over? If it's 10 years then you are paying 10,000 a year and the banker 110,000 a year.

Oh hang on you meant extra. Is that a sensible measure?

I'd question at looking at this on this level in the first place.

TBH I think the whole narrative of 'fairness' is an infatalising crock.