'Marriage Tax Breaks: Did I rig the poll?' blog discussion

a_jam_sandwich

My wife and I are expecting our first child 36+ weeks now so not long now, and I'm a firm believer that you raise your child and not pass it off to a child minder/nursery to bring up. So that has resulted in my wife taking a break from work.

This of course will result in one single wage coming into the house after maternity pay has finished. Now the difference of me carrying my wife's tax allowance to me not is absolutely massive.

I know what some will think though, don't have children unless you financially stable. Well I am, I earn in excess of 30k+, my wife on 16k that a healthy combined income. Take the wife's wage away and the fact there is no married couples tax allowance and suddenly with a mortgage of (150k around £850 a month) that reasonable wage I earn will be a struggle.

All labour have done since in power is cost me money, more tax, less service, more state spying (than china properly) and artificially high house prices and to what end? A broken bankrupt Britain.

So I would say there should be married couple allowance for marriages with children. When you have 2 wages with no dependants I think that the allowance will not help the country the individuals yes but if you have no dependants you should work. If you do have dependants then if you choose to have one worker my personal feelings would be that this could help the next generation as the best teacher and discipliner is the parents, causing crime to go down and the child is socially sound and has a stable good basis.

I know some will not agree but that just my personal thoughts.

Sorry for the rant


Andy

Paul_Herring

a_jam_sandwich wrote:

as the best teacher and discipliner is the parents causing crime to go down

I'm sorry... which country are you in again?

It can't be the UK where all corporal punishment (even if only threatened) has been made illegal, resulting in increased crime and decreased discipline.

So I would say there should be married couple allowance for marriages with children

Are you for or against child benefit and WTC being scrapped?

sunstarrr

I'd really like to see if age plays a factor in people's answers. I have a feeling that younger generations might be more inclined to vote 'no' as I would imagine younger people may be more likely to cohabit than marry.

I voted for 'No. Relationships shouldn’t play any role in the tax system'. Personally, I don't think it's fair to dole out tax breaks based on whether people are married or not. Why not include cohabiting couples who share all expenses/bills/mortgage/rent etc?

Cerisa

I think stable, loving relationships should be rewarded. Marriage is nothing more than a legal trope cloaked in the pelt of romance. I've seen some dreadful marriages in my time, and some great ones, but frankly i've seen better stable relationships amongst gay couples, straight couples co habiting and frankly househares than I have in some marriages. Also I don't think finance should be used as a reason for people to stay together. I didnt realise I felt so strongly about it! but then i have never liked institutions

Cerisa

In fact.... i think co habiting people of all kinds, wether married, living together or house sharing should be rewarded as they tend to use less resources, which is also good for the environment

Richard019

Cerisa wrote: »

In fact.... i think co habiting people of all kinds, wether married, living together or house sharing should be rewarded as they tend to use less resources, which is also good for the environment

Do you not think the savings they make on bills etc is enough? I'd be left with an extra 35% of my aftertax pay if I moved in with someone in the same position.

Errata

Cerisa wrote: »

In fact.... i think co habiting people of all kinds, wether married, living together or house sharing should be rewarded as they tend to use less resources, which is also good for the environment

Interesting POV - would you like to tell us why ? For instance, what is your arguement that a lifestyle choice should be rewarded ?

otheradam

A few opinions on the comments so far before I add my tuppence:

1. I agree with WelshGandalf that it would have been a good idea to include an option for "Yes but only if they had kids" (he says this is the Tory policy but I don't know if this is the case)
2. To check there isn't any bias you should also get people to say which category they fall into as suggested by artumi_richard.
3. Parents can still discipline their children in the UK contrary to Paul_Herring's suggestion. Discipline does not have to take the form of corporal punishment but smacking is still legal.
4. I am full-time employed, married and my wife does not work because she looks after our young son.

I suspect the reason for the poll results is simply because there are a large number of people who think that children brought up by married parents do better (on average and of course there are exceptions). Therefore they feel that marriage should be supported by the tax system. This may be from experience or from the numerous studies that have been published on this topic.

A good overview of the subject is given in the Centre for Social Justice report on marriage: Why is the government anti-marriage? (Sorry I can't post links).

Of course there are individual cases where it seems plain that a tax break for married couples would unfairly penalise others but under the present system it is the married couples with only one income that are being penalised.

Paul_Herring

otheradam wrote:

Parents can still discipline their children in the UK contrary to Paul_Herring's suggestion. Discipline does not have to take the form of corporal punishment but smacking is still legal.

Review of section 58 of the Children's Act 2004

The police have discretion to deal with cases as they consider appropriate.

IOW, if they think you're guilty, you're guilty until you can prove otherwise. Witness the recent ECHR decision about Section 44, which (unbelievably,) the government wishes to contest.

WelshGandalf

The BBC have had a recent "have your say" on marriage tax breaks.

The "most recommended" comments were in favour - which is anecdotal evidence, at least, that the results of this poll did reflect opinion and that the results wern't massively affected by any possible poor phrasing of the question.

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&forumID=7416&edition=1&ttl=20100118002233&#paginator