Cap child tax credit after four children, says MP

[SardineQueen]

here

One of nadine's friends!

I'm not surprised to see this from a conservative MP, as ever I think this sort of thing is a terrible idea - children don't choose to be born and by restricting benefits in this way you are punishing the children for something you disapprove of the parents doing. And as I understand it the number of people with no work ever and loads of children is actually very low? So this sort of policy doesn't actually save much money at all. Can't remember where I saw that though.

I am sure there will be some who disagree. I thought that people who post here might be interested anyway.

Real life?

It is you who need a jammy dodger here! I don't know anyone with 5 children in "real life". It is feckless to have 5 children (excepting unexpected triplets +) unless you are wealthy.

Thank you wise Ledkr, but it's Kevlar body armour on these threads.

I said it before... You're all right. Nothing else to add. Nice being part of a wonderful community on MN that picks odd numbers of kids allowed to be born.

People have been referring to me as wise a lot recently.I may start to hoot and be awake at night. Oh hang on,i am already awake all night

I have 5 children.Not the norm i agree.I had the 5th with my new dh who has none of his own.We will alwys be abit sad we can only have the one but we cannot afford anymore this is because our income will not increase if we do have anymore,it didnt increase with the birth of dd either,we have just had to manage.Why cant others?

fanny stop fannying around and make your point. Do you actually think that the state should just continue to cough up for as many children as a a family choose to have whislt many who are not on any benefits have to limit their families to what they can afford. Do you? Really?

You are wise because you look at things objectively. and were very nice to me on a dog thread once

Towit twooo me nice?woah there haha.

FFS

You are stuffed if you have a steady job, have a large family, and then you are made redundant in a rural area, or get hit by a bus then.

Presumably you should send a few kids to the poor house while you get on your feet again?

Why do some countries like France bend over backwards to encourage larger families and some governments and many greens try to discourage large families?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4856992.stm

What's in it for France and what's in it for the greens and other governments?

'With all this, it is maybe not surprising that France is managing to buck the trend of European depopulation. With a fertility rate of 1.916, it is second only to Ireland in the birth stakes and, unlike many countries, its population is growing strongly.'

'Throughout its modern history France has been obsessed about population levels. Experts have established that around the time of the revolution, French mothers stopped breeding - no one knows why - and a population that had been the largest in Europe fell during the 19th century behind Britain and the emerging Germany.

The massive loss of life in World War I helped spread the conviction that national survival was linked to numbers.

Today, French governments of left and right put the "family" high in their election manifestos, and every year there is a much-publicised Conference on the Family, attended by the prime minister, parents and campaigning groups.'

Why are the French (both right and left) different to the greens and other governments? Are they stupid or do they understand what the greens and other governments want to do?

boffin but thats different,those people havent chosen to keep having children when they are already on tc.I have a large family and am currently on unpaid portion of mat leave,we have jsut had to cut back and live on dh's wages which inccidentally are low enough for us to qualify for a large amount of tc,had i not been returning to work.
Obviously there has to be allowances for those circumstances.

Financially the French are fucked whatever their population policies. They do however have the benefit of a much larger country which is far less densely populated than UK. They have a similar population to us but loads more land.

ledkr please note the title of the thread and then come back to me.

Do I believe TAX CREDITS should be capped if you have a larger family? Do. I. Fuck. Tax credits aren't a benefit for scroungers. They're a benefit for working families on low income. Without them we'd never have gotten back on our feet and been able to start again. We used vital capital to start a business which is now paying our wages. Otherwise we'd have had to live off that capital to live - hence no future. The tax credits helped us to pay our bills. If I'd have had 5 children but only been paid out for 3 or 4, I'd have struggled. Can you see my point of view or are you still reading the Daily Mail to get your answers?

They give tax subsidies of around 500 million a year for land owners with wind farms, which Prince Philip told us are "fairtytales", but they want to cut child benefit for families with more than 4 children. Why?

What is the real cost per year to the small number of families with more than 4 children? How many such families are there. Why don't they tell us in the media, what the real numbers are? I think it is because the figures would not shock us at all when we comnpared them to their "green" tax subsidiies.
It's not about saving money, it's about much more than that, and France won't go along with it.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2064081/Hurrah-Prince-Philip-Wind-power-ruinous-folly-age.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Fanny,

Your moral outrage seems a little forced. You don't have 5 children. You made the sensible decision not to. And, you are both hard working and I am sure you would have got on your feet somehow.

The reality is that if the state subsidises large families for those on low incomes, it has to increase taxes on others. For those other taxes, a higher tax rate will make them choose to have less children. Thus, the subsidy of more children for those on low incomes takes children away from those who can only just afford to have them.

For a lot of people, state money is a kind of "free money". Giving someone with 5 children a zero or close to zero tax rate merely makes others pay more tax.

Wind farms :o

Lovely idea - but when they go wrong it won't be economically viable to repair them, they will be replaced. As some individual units already have. Leaving a trail of Eco bling and green litter across the countryside and out at sea.

My moral outrage isn't forced larry. It's called having humility.

larry - isn't that the case in france? that people who have no or very few children pay a much higher rate of tax than we do here in the UK?

I still think its OK to have 2 or 3 children and have the cost subsidised by other tax payers - its people's right in a civilised society to have children - but that over this is unreasonable to expect others to pay for your choices.

'By the Government?s own estimate, it would cost £404 billion to implement its Climate Change Act ? £760 per household every year for four decades.'

How much does it cost every household to pay for child benefit to families with more than 4 children? Why aren't we told the figures by our "investigative" journalists and the very handsomely paid BBC presenters that we all pay for?

Dreaming,

I actually agree with you. I am not against a little social engineering. We need young people in the 1st world so parents should be incentivised to have children. However there should be a limit. Personally, I would think 3 should be the most.

It is the solution between the trade off between individual choice and expecting others to subsidise your choices that is problematic.

But, the problem is, that minimum wage is SO low in this Country, not a living wage at all, it is LESS THAN HALF OF THE 'AVERAGE' WAGE, which in itself is a level that most people would struggle to survive on without Tax Credits - Average wage is £26K before tax, Minimum wage is £11.8K before tax (and YES it DOES still get taxed, NMW workers aren't exempt, they DO pay tax). Could ANY OF YOU support EVEN ONE CHILD on £11.8K pa WITHOUT some form of Government top-up?

The only reason Tax Credits exist is becauser Labour had a choice - set minimum wage at a level that is sensible to live off, and drive away businesses who could get the labour much cheaper in China or India, OR subsidise businesses in order to keep the UK economy working at all.

All Tax Credits are, in reality, is a business subsidy allowing employers to pay less than a LIVING WAGE to their employees. We are not talking about a living wage in India or China, but a living wage in the UK, before anyone starts that argument, that working for 2p a day and a handful of rice is fine for people in those countries.

Tax Credits = Business Subsidy IMO.

I know - instead of paying Tax Credits to the profligate, useless poor people, how about we tell the Government to start paying it directly to the businesses that employ NMW workers, but then the businesses HAVE to pay a reasonable living wage to their employees?

Would THAT fit your model? Then, no-one's money would go up when they had an additional dc, but the NMW workers would be getting a LIVING WAGE. Which would then enable them to make their OWN decisions about how many dc they have, instead of getting all Daily Fail about it?!

Interesting idea that the Treasury is funded purely from income tax on workers with less than 4 children Corporation tax? Europe? Anything else we might be able to think of? Is it really credible that individual tax payers exchange money between themselves? Remember most benefits/TC's are claimed by low paid workers. Raise the minimum wage and stop subsidising bad employers.

X-post with hunty

hunty - it would be 2x £11.8k = £23.6k as the child would have 2 parents. agree living here would be impossible, but where my IL's live its very cheap and I would have thought it would be fine.

I agree with Hunty about tax credits being business subsidies.

We can't compete with China, India, Macau or anywhere that produces anything without more than cursory health and safety standards and minimum wages.

How do Germany manage to be so productive in this day and age? Is it because they are not trying to compete with cheap imports and aim for the "Quality" market.