tax credits and queens speech ?

[em83]

was anything mentioned in the queens speech today regarding tax credit cuts?
i am rather worried regarding these cuts as someone said they are stopping them for incomes over £31000 and not £50000
can anyone please advise me ?
ta

There was only one mention of the welfare system

"Welfare Reform Bill. Will create a single welfare-to-work programme and make benefit payments more conditional on willingness to accept work. Benefit changes will be UK-wide, but will need parallel legislation in Northern Ireland, where it is devolved.

Other measures will be implemented via secondary legislation, included in future draft bills or remain commitments at this stage."

The LD policy prior to the election was to lower the ceiling for tax credits to £31k. However, CTC works on net income i.e. what's left after paying for registered childcare. Those with incomes between £31 - £50k only receive about £500 a year as it stands and, if that were to go, there could be an increase in personal allowances and a reintroduction of married couples' allowances to make up some of the shortfall. People on lower incomes would be protected or even get a better deal. Tax Credit changes would most likely come into effect next April, so people would have some time to re-budget.

This will be covered in the budget I would think

Didn't the conservatives say over 50K? Also, some people get alot more than the basic if they have several children. People come to rely on it, suddenly scrapping it seems abit harsh. Surely they could reduce it gradually? I know IDS was talking about scrapping them from £30K and Clegg from £24K. Alot of people on those incomes are struggling and not 'high earners'.

Funny how all these lower figures come out now, after the election. The tories and lib dems both denied outright that anyone with a salary of under £40K would be affected.

Promises, fucking promises.

that's not true wubbly

There was a piece on the BBC website that worked through examples taking into account the parties other proposals. One used the Lib Dem £31k figure.

It showed that on that income, the loss of tax credits would be made up by the rise in the tax thresehold and they'd be better off.

Not sure on the Tory figures, but again, it worked out examples at the salary that would trigger the changes and I think it did show a small decrease in overall income but it was only tiny because they would have stopped the NIC rises.

So it wasn't like these were big secrets.

Chil - is that really true about the net income thing? It would explain why my child element of tax credits goes up when my nursery fees go up - have been wondering that for years!

It would make a huge difference to us as we earn just over 50,000 but have an annual childcare bill of 15k

anastaisia, the increase in the tax threshold might well have made the difference neglible, but then old Cleggy got into bed with Cameron and they put up employees NI anyway!

I watched all three televised debates, that £31k figure was never mentioned. Nick Clegg went on about cutting it for high earners. Does he really think a joint income of £31k constitutes high earners?

We'll see how it all pans out and who is better off/worse off, but you can't pretend that Clegg or Cameron were open about these cuts prior to election.

Indeed Riven, they may as well write them all with invisible ink.

Makes me wonder why they bother wasting all that paper, whilst going on about their 'green' credentials.

The money is all gone and we are in a terrible position

I did some calculations and a family on 32K with 5 kids could get £5758.12 a year. that may be about £100 a week. That is alot to lose....

Even if they gain £700 a year or even £2000 in new tax benefits, they still lose quite alot.

Tax credits: Are family budgets under threat?

oh, those highly secret plans...

oh, and although the Conservative plans to scrap the NIC for employees is gone the Lib Dem tax threshold raise is coming in.

So won't families be better off as the article says?

anastaisia, that article is a BBC news piece, 2 days prior to the general election.

Did you watch the televised debates for the 3 weeks leading up to the GE? Did you hear what came out of the mouths of Clegg and Cameron? I'm fairly certain I didn't hear them make admissions to the cuts mentioned in that article.

In fact, Cameron consistently referred to the £50k figure, Clegg waffled on about how someone on an MPs salary was entitled to tax credits.

They lied, changed their minds, told half truths whatever you want to call it. They certainly didn't make their intentions clear to the electorate.

Is it not the case that the increase to the tax threshold is incremental, reaching £10k by 2015?

I wonder if they'll be cutting tax credits by increments also?

this was published in April 2010 so the figures were available in advance.

Yes and I'm sure every member of the voting public scoured that document to see exactly what was being proposed.

I take it you didn't watch the debates? You know, the ones where Dick Clameron fobbed us all off with their double talk? Gordon Brown told us all what they had planned, he was called a liar.

Indeed Cat64, I discussed it at length on here myself.

I did pore over the details with a fine toothcomb, I did know that Cameron and Clegg were being economical with the truth. What they said on those debates didn't tally with what was being said elsewhere.

I'm not surprised at what is happening but I can't agree that Clegg and Cameron were upfront about the cuts prior to the election. They deliberately mislead the viewers during those debates, but then they are politicians.

Thing is, you're trying to claim they lied. But those figures were in the public domain. I found them in a two minute google search. The Lib Dem manifesto said they would restrict tax credits.

In the debate Clegg said this about tax credits:
"Why don?t we say not for the top 20% of recipients?"

Now I don't know about you - but that implies quite a big cut to me. Not as though he's gone out of his way to make people think they're going to keep as many people getting tax credits as they can.

Unrelated to the debates, but something I just found on google; apparently a third of tax credit spending goes on the the top 50% of earners, with the poorest 20% of earners only getting 18% of tax credit spending. Now I assume that's partially because they don't claim as much childcare, but it still sounds incredibly unfair if true.

Why didn't Clegg just say we'll cut tax credits for those earning over £25k, which is what he planned? What do you call that if it's not lying? Being economical with the truth perhaps? He used all kinds of grand phrasing rather than just spelling it out.

Why bother having TV debates if the public can't take what the potential leaders are saying at face value?

He lied, I don't care how you want to dress it up anastaisia, he had the perfect platform and the ideal opportunity to tell the electorate what he had planned and he refused to do it. He looked down the camera, talking directly to the electorate and purposefully misrepresented his policy. That's lying in my book.

Tax credits shouldn't be necessary at all.

They've enabled the minimum wage to be applied to jobs that would have been subject to market fluctuations and values.

Employers need to pay "proper" salaries then we wouldn't have the housing gap and we wouldn't need tax credits. The Labour Govt have made too many people reliant on credits rather than forcing employers to pay the market rate.

Cam and Clegg need to withdraw from the concept of subsidising salaries and let the market set the rate.

Im a nursery nurse but work for a charity and earn well above what is average for the job but my childcare bill is still more than I earn even before I pay tax, ni and pension contributions. If tax credits were abolished or the levels fall too much as a single mother I would have to give up work and would have to claim income support.

I wouldn't be the only one meaning that there would be nurseries and childminders having to close. All it would take in a baby room is to loose 3 full time under 2s and not to be able to fill the spaces and that's one member of staff being made redundant. If tax credits are abolished even if just for the so called middle earners I would love to know what they are planning to do about childcare costs. My boss was saying the other day that the plan is to increase the free sessions to over 18 months, but 15 hours of free sessions isn't that much of a help when you work full time, or you have school aged children.

Im very worried about my job at the moment which is a shame because I love it, but a lot of middle earners already cant afford to use us full time and use us part time and other child care such as grandparents for the rest of the time.