The Conservatives have vowed to address the well documented fact that welfare recipient and low or moderate income families are better off financially if they live apart (even after accounting for the cost of running an extra home) . The two ideas mooted being a transferable tax allowance and eradicating any couple penalty in the tax credit system.
However, this is utterly fallacious and I am afraid I'm going to have to get a bit mathematical to explain!
The Tories' rhetoric about marriage is meaningless since they propose to abolish tax credits to households with income of over £50k. The approx. £20 per week you'd gain from transferable tax allowance is dwarfed by the tax credits and other payments the non-earner would receive if they separate.
I am soon to be a mother (with a mild disability) of 1 child under one, working three days a week. My beloved partner of 12 years and I have a happy 'Living Apart Together' relationship which suits us due to our professional lives - I rent in suburbia, he owns a flat in London. As we lead autonomous, unmarried lives, I would be entitled to around 12K in tax credits (including the child care, child and working and disability element) to top up my net income (after tax and pension contributions) of about £14,000 giving me a take home pay of £26,000. I would also get £1,200 housing benefit towards my HA rent.
If we move in together, under the current system, our joint income is just over the £60k threshold (and that doesn't make you well off in London by any stretch of the imagination) so we would get no tax credits and no Housing Benefit. My partner bought his flat years ago before the boom so the cost of running it is £6000 per annum all in. Subtract this from the lost tax credits to calculate the couple penalty which is £7,200.
Under the Tories as a single parent I still get the same tax credits but if we co-habit we are still entitled to nothing being well over the £50k threshold. I cannot transfer the tax allowance to the other half even if we did marry since I work part-time, so the couple penalty is still £7,200.
The 'couple penalty' is inevitable if you want to be proportionately more generous to people on lower incomes and if you assess entitlement according to household rather than individual circumstances. That is why I favour a move towards an individualised rather than 'household' tax credit system.
Before anyone takes the moral high-ground, we are discussing our options and are likely to forsake the £7k to move in together and provide a more standard family arrangement for our child.
I am simply illustrating the persistence of the couple penalty under the Tories. And surely by lowering the Tax credit threshold to £50k, a household is MORE likely to lose the credits if they live together than under the current £60k threshold?
If any tories reading this could give some clarity, this floating voater would certainly be appreciative!