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.

I agree, either support all parents in a fair way (working or not) or means test them all with no universal benefits being unfairly distributed (why should a 4 year old get a free school meal but not an 8 year old?).

Otherwise, watch out working families who have decided to have another child or move house on the basis of your current net income, you might get a shock when they next move the goal post.

There should be choice in how to bring up your children and once you have made that choice you shouldn't have the rug pulled out from under you. If they made these decisions to apply to children born after a certain date in the future then you have time and choice to make a decision on what to do.

Yes Lego, it would be great if parents could share the childcare and both had the choice of working part-time but that choice is only really available to people whose existing full-time employers agree to them going part-time. Also, if families were to do this, there would be a lot less HRT payers contributing to the social fund. Are you saying that you wouldn't need the tax relief on childcare though? And you wouldn't expect to get any CB either?

It's not just an issue relating to the economy either but about society.

There is value in having a SAHP, not just in the early years but also when they get to secondary school. It's flippant to say everyone can get an au pair or they can have your tea ready. I know plenty of well off dual income families who are now stressing about their oldest child coming home to an empty house (not stressed enough to be home though). A few of the kids at home alone have ended up phoning the police because they were scared by someone knocking on the front door or a window cleaner who appeared at an upstairs window.

They'll soon grow older and more confident and will soon no doubt enjoy the freedom of you not knowing where they are or what they are doing or who they are with but is that a good thing that there will be no-one around to supervise all these teenagers? (and what when their siblings join them at home alone and you are not there to keep the peace?).

Flexible working isn't available to everyone and employers aren't going to let all parents go home at 2.45 - that is called part-time working. Also, as far as I can see, this government is reducing workers rights not improving them.

I agree with @IhateGeorgeO’s comments regarding the need for a parent to be around for older kids coming in from school too.

For me, one of the fundamental issues when discussing parental care and paid childcare, is this. The government, in its relentless failure to ignore the financial struggles facing many families with a SAHP whilst assisting dual-income/paid childcare families, is effectively saying to the SAHP that “there is no monetary value to society by you looking after your own kids”; the childcare you provide is effectively worth £0 per hour and you might as well spend your days painting your grass green. Yet if the childcare is being provided by a paid childminder, it miraculously becomes worth £(some apparently huge amount) per hour.

Any initiative that supports working parents in welcome

Any initiative that involves giving yet more financial breaks to the already rich is most definitely not welcome. The very last thing this country needs is more non means tested benefits.

The very last thing this country needs is more non means tested benefits.

I agree unless the means testing costs more than just paying out the money. I want the cheapest solution not an politically driven approach.

Well this is means tested, just at under £300,000.

its not a specific means testing process - I think it is just using the HMRC 150k tax level (45%).

the alternative would have been to cut off at people who pay 40% tax but that was too low.

It's more that a SAHP doesn't pay tax. When they go to work they do and their childcarer does too. It's not about SAHPs value really, it's about revenue for the Govt.

Also we need people to have children and we need people working because our population is incredibly top heavy. So they have to make both doable, and indeed attractive. Money only goes so far, tax revenue has to be concentrated to enable what the country needs which ultimately is people working.

As for the £150,000 cap if you are both working in jobs that pay that, and paying top whack on taxes, you need a many working 60+ hoes a week which in London is going to cost you the best part of £50k all in. A nursery won't provide the hours you need and a CM might but it'll still coat a bomb especially if you have 2+ children. They are getting a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost paid and a tiny amount of tax back and the high earners won't vote this Govt back in if they don't get it

Erm no they don't,the vast maj of my working friends don't pay a penny in tax but are now now going to cost the gov money in childcare bills.

Also you actually have to earn quite a lot to actually contribute towards the state.Many people who do pay tax actually take out more than they pay in.So many of those families on one income will be contributing more than many on two.

And the fact remains if you choose to have children it is your responsibility to look after them whether it be with a sahp or childcare.One doesn't trump the other so should be treated with equal importance.It should be left to families to decide whether they want a sahp or childcare,governments shouldn't be lecturing of engineering parents on such an important decision.

How would sorting the eligibility criteria for this differ from that for CB? Apart from the obvious fact that many couples are now ineligible for CB and far fewer dual earning couples will miss out on this tax break.

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.

as we have a structural deficit (i.e. even if the returned to good times, we would as a country spend more money than we get in in taxation) it is the govts priority to increase the tax take from income tax.

combined with an aging population and the need to self finance retirement, working age people, from a national perspective, need to work.

As the gov decided a family on £50k was rich why can't £50k be the cut off for this and free school dinners?

We have the ludicrous situation of partners not even in receipt of CB having to declare to tax so CB can be means tested soooo not getting why it would be so hard to do the same for these two benefits very rich families are benefiting from.

Also not getting why the gov begrudge a one income family on £50k CB but if the second parent was to get a non tax paying £50 a week job the gov will happily help shell out ££££££ for several children in childcare.

But you they are raising the level before you pay tax and many people will now be costing ££££ in childcare but paying zero tax.Most second earners I know(myself included) want part time jobs which are far more likely to be under the tax threshold.

There are too many low productivity jobs in the UK economy, propped up by government subsidy.

And I would just like to point out that 2 x £25k jobs pay less tax than 1 £50k job.

So is it just as "means tested" as CB cut-off?

I would be interested to know how much that has cost. It's generated a lot of extra paperwork. (Ponders if that may be an economic positive in terms of productivity or job creation..)

As the gov decided a family on £50k was rich why can't £50k be the cut off for this and free school dinners?

because they have not defined £50k as rich and there are different cuts offs for different benefits.

They clearly have defined 50k as rich though Favourite or else why would they have that as the CB cut off? Why not 100k? The truth is, they completely messed up this CB thing and they know it. At the time, it was a wheeze to demonstrate that we are all in this together, bla, bla, clap trap. As it started to unravel and it became a massive talking point and the tories started to panic that they had shafted their key voters, they realised they had to do something. They were too pig headed to u turn on the policy which is what they should have done. Osborne did not want to lose face. However, they clearly don't want to make the same mistake again, hence the huge cut offs they are now using. Wish they'd thought about it before. I feel a bit like collateral damage to enable the tories to satisfy the lib dems and appease the much richer and poorer electorate. Been totally shafted and I will remember for years to come.

Oh they did define those on £50k as rich/wealthy,and knob Johnson even said all of those on £50 and above used CB to line their wine cellars and go on decent ski-ing holidays.

They can't backtrack on that now when it suits.

Obviously those on 2x £40k ie £80k don't have wine cellars as they got to keep it.

The sheer utter ignorance re how your average middle income live from Cameron's Eton crew is just utterly hysterical.

Yes, £50k was considered too well-off to receive CB.

Ihate: I don't think the cut-off here has been chosen from any embarrassment on Osborne's part. He is quite clear that his government doesn't want to support the "lifestyle choice",as he put it, of a having a SAHP. All parties would prefer all parents to work and use childcare, it is favoured by economists. You are now a radical free-thinker !

The Lib Dems presumably persuaded the Cons to give it a rather unconservative tax break - extended right up to the income level of the people they know.

All parties would prefer all parents to work and use childcare, it is favoured by economists.

yes. and most people do.

Fine.

I'm sorry but I can't understand why people are upset that they are not getting a tax break on childcare that they don't have to pay for because their children are at home with them.

These people aren't losing anything, they are simply remaining the same as they were before. CB I could sort of understand because it does seem unfair and SAHP with one high-wage earner actually lost out on something they previously got, but to be complaining that childcare (which is ridiculously expensive) is finally getting a tax break just seems awful self centred.