Tory Marriage Tax - makes me feel a bit icky

[HohohoBumperlicious]

Am I right to feel a bit - for want of a better word - icky about marriage tax. I am married but it just seems wrong to put a financial and moral (as after all the root of the tax is surely a moral one) premium on marriage.

It's not always the best state and certainly isn't one that should be the default, it is, after all, a purely social construct designed to fit in with perceived views on what is 'moral'. I'm sure people can be perfectly happy and good members of the community without being married.

Am I missing the point somehow?

If it wouldn't apply to couples in Civil Partnerships then it is deeply discriminatory.

I know two gay couples in a civil partnership who have children - if this tax is purported to be about supposting family life for children, then they need to be included.

And LOL at the reaction if all married people get the tax break (regardless of parental status) and therefore all gay couples in civil partnerships get it too.

Bet that will go down well with the middle england moral majority

Whilst countless studies may show children with married parents 'do better' how can that be an argument to shower financial bonuses on those parents, whilst denying single parents and co-habitating couples?

Anyway if the kiddies with married parents "do better", then perhaps the kids with unmarried parents would be better off with a little more money spent on them.

The whole 'policy' is quite ludicrous and baffling and I don't even think it's a policy anymore.

Families do need support - but it should be for all families, not just those who have married. Some of the most despicable people I've ever known have been married!

Icky is a great way of putting it. It's uncomfortable & wrong.

I side with BelleDameSanaMerci fully, this policy was developed by people with no experience of living off a tiny budget or from a "broken home" my parents divorced when i was 10 and my mum recently divorced again from an abusive relationship, plunging her and her 3 children officially back into poverty which we had been in for all but two years of our lives. And yet i am at the local state grammar school in sixth form and am set for 4A's and 2B's for my AS-levels, i prove your statistics wrong and am infuriated by the ignorance of this policy!

Elitist dual parent generated research and policies are increduously biased.

Whilst misogynistic reporting would have us believe that single and lone parents are products of insiduous communities made up of those 'on the take' with an agenda to bring down civilised society, current research shows this to be a myth - along with the witch hunt mentality that posits that marriage produces stable kids. (As an example please consider that Adolf Hitler was the product of a 'stable marriage', as are the vast majority of UK prisoners.)

Very most single/lone parents were once married. Their exit from this institution happens as a result of death, infidelity, cruelty, disability, illhealth and incompatability etc. Tax breaks are highly unlikely to alter this; hence the ludicrousness of the proposal and the highlighting of the proposers distance from the diverse life of the populous.

Parliament really does need a greater representation of single/lone parents.

of course it's 'icky'. (look, why don't you use the adult word 'unfair' instead of silly childspeak just because you are a mum. stop giving us a bad name). Children don't understand the word 'marriage' or 'respectability', so why should benefits apply only to the ones whose parents are married ? If mums care about children, they should care about all children and whether their parents are married or not is irrelevent to them. and if you don't think you should care about all children, remember that your child will have to grow up amongst all the others, so it's in all our interests that all children are treated with respect.

I think it's icky (unfair), especially the bit about being able to transfer tax allowances which - as far as I observe - would probably only benefit families where there is one high earning parent. (generally, where the father or mother earns a modest amount, both parents have to work). There are of course, exceptions, and I apologies to those people who live modestly on one income.

Would you have to give back the money if you got divorced?

And, imagine if your philandering husband left you for another woman whom he married. They would get the benefits and you wouldn't.

Or, perhaps the tories are only proposing it for your first marriage. It seems riddled with moral complication!

The problem here is that the Tories brought in independent taxation of married women which meant that everyone has their own tax free allowance. I don't use mine (except to claim back my tax from GCSE marking) as I have accompanied dh abroad on an HM Govt posting and thus am an SAHM.

The issue here seems to be that if you are a SAHP (in whatever family set up) you should be allowed to transfer your tax free allowance to your working partner if you choose. The election to do so should be made every year, so if I won the Euromillions and had stacks of bank interest (in my dreams), then I could choose which would be more financially advantageous, to let dh keep the allowance, or use it to get my interest tax free.

There is no need to tie this to married or not, or income levels; it is just wanting in my case to be able to utilise my tax free allowance to my best advantage.

Oh can someone please explain in laywoman terms how this affects me as I am getting married in the summer!

It doesn't affect you at all, as the Tories haven't been elected yet, and if they do get power then they won't be able to afford to do anything anyway.

I don't get this policy. I accept that statistics show that marriage is beneficial in all sorts of ways. But a marriage that is entered into just because of the tax breaks is not going to have the same beneficial effects as a marriage that is entered into because the couple wanted to get married regardless of the financial effects.

In other words, you can't bribe people into getting married and expect them to behave in the same way as people who didn't have to be bribed to get married.

Maybe the tories would say... this isn't a bribe, we're not trying to persuade people to get married by this. But in that case what's the point?

I've been with my partner 10 years we are not married, nor have any plans to do so in the near future, how exactly would my children do better if we were married?

I completely do not see a problem with the tax break for married couples. It does not in any way shape or form exclude single parents, as they gets single parent benefits.
As for all those unmarried and committed couples with children, the question should be, if you are so happy and committed and raising children why NOT get married?
If you think that a marriage certificate is just a piece of paper, then it won't make any difference to you anyway - get it and get tax breaks.
If you think that marriage is more than just a a formality then why are you not doing it?

To me, marriage is a religious invention designed to control a woman's fertility.

Just because it is now supposed to be an expression of commitment does not mean that it's original meaning was not "I promise to only let one man shag me" and "I promise to pay for the children produced by me shagging this property of mine"

It smacks too hard of institutionalised slavery to me, and I'll have no part in it. I can be an excellent committed parent without 'God' saying so.

I am an individual who happens to be married. I either work, pay tax and use my personal allowance or eh, I don't. Why should my DH get to use it and hence pay less tax then his unmarried but cohabiting friend. We all have an individual tax allowance. Not a family tax allowance. A family doesn't earn any income, a person does.

Marriage is essentially an indivdual choice - I object to the Government supporting or encouraging such a choice over all the other equally valid options are that available for people.

Msupa please don't assume all single parents are in receipt of single parent benefits (whatever they may be.) They are not.

to cold tits:

Though I accept that for a while marriage was not an equal partnership and disproportionally rubbish from women's point of view, it does not mean it is still the same institution. Marriage is what one makes of it and many will argue that (when done well) it is now a more or less equal partnership.

It's like refusing to send one's kids to school just because many years ago schools were horrid Dickinsonian institutions with capital punishment for children.

To gomez: agree, my understanding of single parent benefits may be wrong. But it's an argument for introducing them, rather than for critisising tax breaks for married couples.

I do not need a 'husband'. I need a partner. I refuse to bow to the notion that having a 'husband' is somehow morally superior to having a partner.

Why do you deserve a tax break for turning up at a registry office and signing your name to a piece of paper? What on earth is being rewarded? The fact that you can write your name?

What is the point of a marriage tax break when marriage is so easily disposed of? it's no harder to split up with a husband that it is a partner, and people are no less likely to leave the father of their child if they are married to them if the reason they are leaving is that he's an unbearable twunt.

WHY is marriage better?

Has Cameron actually mentioned civil partnerships? It's all very vague.

I don't understand this policy. It sounds like it will reward marrieds without children, divorced/remarried dads who abandon their first family. Married couples with or without children who both have to work (with no pension, astronomical mortgage, etc.) don't gain anything. How many children would benefit from this? There aren't any details at all.

There are other advantages to marriage and civil partnership - intestacy laws and inheritance tax.

The tax break if any won't be sizeable enough to encourage people to get married - it seems to be more an acknowledgement that a stable family unit is the best way to bring up kids, and I include civil partnerships/cohabiting in that. I happen to be married, but some choose not to.

If legislation changes and the SAH parent is allowed to transfer their tax allowance to their significant other (ie make use of it), then fine. Some will already be doing this by having savings and investments in the name of the partner who doesn't work, so as to use the allowance. Those people won't be any better off. For others it would reduce the tax bill and increase the take home pay.

It is an icky policy.

I agree the break should also be given to those in long-term partnerships, however, those in committed long-term partnerships have to PROVE that they are in them because, otherwise, there is no way of knowing who they are- you can't assume people are in long-term committed partnerships PURELY because they are living together under the same roof.

Also, the one thing you can say about marriage is that the couples at least expressed a desire to be in a long-term relationship.

And, before there is any lynching by the "you hate cohabitees" crowd, I fully realise that there most definitely are cohabitees who are in long-term, committed relationships.

Trouble is, not ALL of them are- some are in it for the short-term or a bit of fun.

Personally, I am sick of the state intrusion into the private life of the individual.

Why the hell should a person be denied/rewarded money on the basis of who their spouse/partner is?

When people go out to do their jobs, they are doing it ALONE not with their bl*y partner/spouse- and they get taxed as individuals, too.
It is wrong to tax people as individuals yet class them as married or married in the benefits system.
Simple as that.

Treat people as individuals in their own right.

OR recognise stable relationships in tax affairs!

I am at the number of people who agree with this.

And marantha, I can't tell you how many (men, admittedly) who basically got married because they thought it would be fun and didn't look at the long-term possibilities. Most of them buggered off after the birth of the 2nd child. (Sorry, but it was the men in the cases I know of; I don't however, assume that all men are like that because I know they're not.)

I am married, but would have done that anyway (and there was still married person's allowance when we got married) with or without the tax break - which was abolished soon after anyway.

As this facility already exists for pensioners (married couples/civil partnership allowance), then I don't see why it is a problem to roll it out or something like it, downwards. It is probably cheaper than raising the personal allowances, which isn't happening in 2010/11; they are pegged at the same rate as 2009/10.

I can see why some people choose not to marry; however, it is worth investigating property ownership rules on death, IHT and ensuring that you each have up to date water tight wills in place.