Childcare tax breaks for working parents.

[youarewinning]

Please someone explain this to me? There seems to be a £2000 tax break for families where there are 2 working parents.

So does this excude single working families as it excuses families with a SAHP.

Does anybody really care, what the gov or anybody else thinks when they choose their lifestyle.
I know I don't give a flying fig what economists think.
As long as our decisions as parents are right for our families what should it matter?

Fify

The children of a sahp aren't always with them though, nor should they be.
All parents need some form of childcare/pre school education whatever their work status.

the childcare benefit is to help parents work not help them be parents

Yes children do need pre-school education potatoprints. That's why all 3 year olds get 15 hours of pre-school education for free - which means that all parents of three year olds incidentally get that childcare for free.

Morethan
"All parents need some form of childcare/pre school education whatever their work status"

And all CHILDREN receive 15 hours of (free) school education regardless of their parent's work status (it's not designed for the parents' benefit).

This doesn't affect that.

"And all CHILDREN receive 15 hours of (free) school education regardless of their parent's work status (it's not designed for the parents' benefit)."

no they don't.

I don't get that here in Cardiff.

The people who are complaining about an ideological attack on SAHPs don't seem to have mentioned the new tax allowance being introduced specifically to benefit married couples with one non-earner. As it happens I think it's fair enough, even though I won't personally benefit . The UK was pretty unique amongst the G20 in that an earner with a dependant SAHP and four young children will have exactly the same tax-free personal allowance as a single earner with no dependants. I'm unconvinced about the married couples only bit though, and I think there would be a case for extending it in a limited way to higher rate tax payers.

Erm there are more couples not married than married and that was £100 a year.

I don't agree with rewarding marriage,You get married and stay married because you want to not to get tax breaks.

£200 quid a year actually. I don't like the reward for marriage aspect but I do think there's a case for increasing personal allowance for people with more dependants as is the case in most other countries.

Do you not get 15 hours at aged 3yo in Wales? I never knew that.

Indeed, the removal of CB could be seen as an incentive to end some fragile marriages - split from the HRTP and you get the CB back and would probably then be eligible to claim other types of benefits too.

Re morethan...'s comment about not caring about what anyone else thinks when you make your lifestyle decision; unfortunately it's not that black and white - if you make your decision and a few years later they punish you for it.

you have to earn more than around £26k to be a net tax contributor. i.e. pay in more tax than your individual share of the costs of running the country and the services you use.

Isn't all you are saying there is that people who earn above average are net contributors and those that earn below average are net takers.

It's not as simple as that though. All of us will have times in our lives where we take more than we contribute (childhood, pregnancy, illness - isn't the NHS is the biggest expense, unemployment, retirement). There are probably only a very few people at the very top of society who are net contributors all of their lives, but most WORKERS will be paying more tax than they are taking out because there are groups who take such a large percentage of the tax bill. That is the whole point of the welfare state after all, we all pay in so we can take out when we need.

the point i am making is that people who think they/their DP/DH pays a lot of tax, often dont know how much you need to earn to pay for your fair share.

so if one person works and another SAH for a long period of time, the working person has to earn a high salary to pay the fair share of two adults.

But often they'll be paying more than the two income equivalent(ie nearer to covering two adults) so I don't get the argument.

The withdrawal of Child Benefit gave some heinous "implicit marginal tax" rates i.e affecting those at the margins who had lost a benefit.

retro - many posters state that their household pays very large amounts of tax. i am pointing out that it not really that great a contribution overall when one person contributes nothing in tax.

High marginal rates of tax are disincentivising.

Have checked on a previous net contributor calculator website, but forget which one it was. It might be IFS. Apparently, on a single income of 60k with 3dc, we are net contributors.

Well very few contributions are individually significant..

You don't have to defend yourself that way ihate!

The fact is your household has taken an unexpected financial hit by this government's CB policy. You were losers but a household of 49k + 49k were not. There is a systemic bias against sole earners.

but the houehold earning 2*49 pay more tax, so thier CB is offset aganist a larger tax contribution.

they contribute more.

But the household earning 60k between two earners do not pay more tax than the household earning 60k through one earner.

because people who eanr less money, pay a lower rate of tax. surely that is right?

In pretty much every other OECD country, tax rates are set depending on how many children you have. My French friend cannot believe that we do not have that facility here. She was really shocked when I explained that it doesn't matter if a man is supporting a wife and 4 kids, he still pays the same tax as a single man.

france - that country with a really screwed economy!

and public finances!