Married couples 'punished by tax system'

DW123_2

The_White_Horse wrote: »

stop being so selfish and make me my dinner.

Priceless!!!!:rotfl:

JayScottGreenspan

The government are effectively paying parents to separate. Utterly indefensible.

The government have an obligation to ensure that the tax system works, and we pay a hell of a lot of ministers and civil servants very handsomely to perform this task.
What do we get - incompetence. If they were a high street retailer they'd have gone under well before Woolies.

Vote them out.

chewmylegoff

DW123 wrote: »

I'm sorry but I find that offensive. I'm not asking you to pay more.

but, you see, you are. you want to keep more of your salary - you want to be taxed less. there's only one way that married people or couples with children or whatever can be taxed less, and that way requires people like me to me pay more tax to fund the tax cut you want.

I'm not sure whether my family has anything to do with the tax I pay for health insurance. i just think it's a taxable perk regardless. perhaps some tax guru could clarify??

i believe that private health insurance for the employee only is a non-taxable benefit in kind (the logic being, i suppose, that your employer is paying for insurance to ensure you are healty for work purposes).

conversely private health insurance for the employee's family on the other hand is a taxable benefit in kind.

olly300

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

The government are effectively paying parents to separate. Utterly indefensible.

The government have an obligation to ensure that the tax system works, and we pay a hell of a lot of ministers and civil servants very handsomely to perform this task.
What do we get - incompetence. If they were a high street retailer they'd have gone under well before Woolies.

Vote them out.

Unfortunately we can't vote the civil servants out.

And the last Tory government couldn't work out how to deal with the situation robsta found himself in. There solution was to treat the woman as a single parent for everything so in the case of some of my friends even though their step dad was in all cases their dad except for biologically due to the fact their own father p**** off before they were 5 the tax payer ended up paying.

SingleSue

brummybloke wrote: »

where we were living people on beneifts are entitled to free nursery places, the only nurserys where we lived were £40 per day, i know because i was having to pay it while other people who didnt work were bringing their kids into the same nursery, they got given free nursery vouchers, these were for children under 3.
social housing can be housing benefit or a council house, it makes 0 difference, she would be entitles to £120 per week towards private renting, it is still benefit money.

on the old benefit calculator this doesnt include nursery, any additional one off claims for things, free school meals when my son is old enough, me renting out my house. according to the calculator it comes to just under 15k, just for housing working tax and jsa.

Entitlementper yearper weeknotesMeans-tested income entitlementsTax Credits-Initial Tax Credit£2,635.30£50.54 Tax Credits£2,635.30£50.54 Income Support/JSA£234.64£4.50Assumes adult-only Income Support/JSA(IB). Means-tested bill reductionsCouncil Tax Benefit£912.50£17.50You will not have to pay Council Tax as you qualify for full Council Tax Benefit. Our calculation is based on you receiving £50.54 from tax credits. Housing Benefit£10,428.57£200.00Our calculation is based on you receiving £50.54 from tax credits. Total Entitlements£14,211.01£272.54 weekly

Well not where I live.....nursery/playgroup starts at 3 here and you get 12.5 hours a week funded by the state regardless of earnings or non earnings.

The fact still remains that if she got a part time job, any income would be taken off her HB and CTB.

Can you please also clarify what one off things she could also claim for, I have not been able to claim for any one off things in the whole time I have been claiming...this includes school uniform, childcare, paint allowance etc but I have had access to (but not taken) a social fund loan...which has to be paid back the same as any loan.

As a seperate family unit, the renting out of your house and moving in would not come into it...it would be wrong and quite possibly illegal, at the very least, it would be a case of moral fraud, if not a real fraud and would be more wrong than someone who is a genuine benefit claimant through a marriage split.

So counting all those figures in is incorrect as you would to all intents and purposes be two seperate households and what you personally get would not be counted....question is, would you really want to split with your wife (even for a short while) just so you can defraud the state? Could you live with yourself? I certainly wouldn't be able to.

SingleSue

The_White_Horse wrote: »

the point is, most people don't want free money from you or anyone else. they want to keep more of their own money that they have earned. However, this govt is obsessed with tax and take and take and take to give to underserving scum bags on their 5th or 6th child.

The govt should not penalise the married couples, they should penalise the single mothers. children are better off being raised in proper familes. not in grotty council flats or houses with staffies, and fat illiterate mothers in tight leggings feeding the kids chips whilst smoking, all paid for by the likes of me.

help people who help themselves. don't help layabout social underclass scum.

I think you are guilty of generalising a tad here...you say penalise the single mothers, do you mean all of them?

What about those who have been widowed?
Those who have become single by divorce or seperation?
Those who have been abandoned?
Come to that, what about single fathers? There are a few of them too or are they different because they are male?
Do you personally know that every single mother feeds her children chips all the time, that they are illiterate, that they wear tight leggings?
How do you know that every single mother is a layabout?
What makes every single mother scum?
How do you know that they have never worked and never paid into the pot?

No you don't but you think you do because you are stereotyping and generalising way too much.

Mind you, I do agree with one of your points - in an ideal world, children should be raised as part of a two parent family, unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world.

whathavewedone

I would like to see the tax allowance for married people brought back in.

I am only not working at the moment because our children are 1 and 2. I am actually looking at going back to work part time this year even though I will be (if I am lucky) simply covering the childcare costs just because it will be much more difficult to restart my career after a 5 year break. Really I will have to look at going back to work full time when they reach school age.

I'm not really that bothered about my career tbh (I was, well technically still am, a solicitor) and would love to stay at home with my children but it just wouldn't be realistic. My oh earns about 50k and we would be loads better off if we lived separately and earned 25k each.

The government seem to be actively discouraging traditional families and I think that's a pity.

Gorgeous_George

brummybloke wrote: »

... hence my original point, if we lived apart we would be cash in pocket £22k at the very least better off per year

There are loads of people living apart so that they can claim benefits. Some 'live with each other' but rent a room with a family member or close friend for benefits purposes. It happens - a lot.

Beat the cheats and the system will be stronger.

GG

whathavewedone

I should add that clearly this government is only interested in giving away money to the people who are most likely to vote for them.

They have shamelessly courted the very rich and created a situation whereby their core voters are dependent on the state and won't be biting the hand that feeds any time soon.

As a result of this we have economic meltdown and who is going to suffer most? The middle classes - especially married and cohabiting couples with children who have had to stretch themselves to buy a decent home for themselves and their families.

SingleSue

Ember999 wrote: »

Why the smirk? I was brought up to believe the man was the provider? Is that not your opinion? When life was like this, men working and providing for their families, there were families and not reams of single parents on benefits.

Oooohhh this is tempting, another subject I tend to get on my soap box about and one which has led to many (heated) discussions with my father.

No men are not the only providers, some men don't like providing which means that the female has to become the provider as the man has peed off to somewhere else in the country.

In the early days of our marriage, I earnt around 3-4 times as much as my husband, he didn't like it much but then I applied myself and had ambition...he was a stick in the mud. If I hadn't provided, then we wouldn't have eaten, taken nice holidays etc.

Later on in life, after the children, my earnings provided the nice things in life and at times, my part time earnings, almost reached his full time ones...again because I applied myself and took chances when they appeared.

I'm not a raving feminist or anything like that (I still like people to hold doors open for me and I won't berate a male if he does) but apart from one of two different physical attributes (on both sides), we are all the same and can pretty much do the same things to the equal standard. There are of course exceptions, men are not able to carry and give birth to a child and some woman would find hard manual work difficult.