goodbye family credit..forever..Now what?

seven-day-weekend

I can understand getting benefits for disability etc., what I don't understand is how, or why, someone can double their salary through benefits. A poster earlier on said her husband earned £245 a week and then they got benefits of £350 a week - that's nearly £600 a week! We have only a little bit morem than that a month to live on. Also I read in one of Martin's articles that you can earn £66,000 a year and still claim tax credits.

My husband and I brought our salaries home less tax etc. We didn't bring twice as much as our salaries home.

liney

Although I think entitledto.com is a great tool, I do think it makes it very easy for people to sit fiddling with figures to work out how they can do the least work for the most money.

I firmly believe there should be an upper limit for benefits per family. £600 per week - how much would have to earn to take that home nowdays? £40k? more? It should be calculated when the family claims, and they should not increase if the family puts themselves in a worse situation such as working less hours, or having additional children.

I'm not poking at anyone here. The system is at fault, not the persons claiming what they can.

krisskross

bonnie wrote:

Even if i went to work, i would still keep the dla and child benifit and some tax credits and if i earnt £86 the carers allowance as well. all i would probably lose is the housing benifit.

please do not take this the wrong way bonnie but this is exactly the point that is now landing the OP in a pickle. The government are funding families to a far higher level than they could fund themselves and all of a sudden it stops, people are having to support themselves and are finding it difficult.

I do not agree with paying out benefits at such high levels, I believe in a bit of extra help but not so much that it removes all incentive to work. I firmly believe that social welfare payments should have a ceiling as to how much is given to any one family. I also think that the benefit system as it is now is totally unsustainable, the country just cannot afford it. I bet Labour are hoping they lose the next election so they do not have to deal with it.

WHA

As far tax allowances, there was a married couple's allowance or an additional personal allowance for having a dependant child, but you got one or the other no both, as far as I remember the allowances didn't increase the more children you had, and they were phased out in the late 1990's. The allowance didn't really add up to much anyway - about £1,500 allowance which at 22% tax say increased your wage by under a tenner a week.

S4311y

I think the whole thing is 1 big pickle, the tax credits never seem to be able to do their job properly nor help you further when you ring up, and half the time you end up getting the amount cut back or having to pay them back altogether. Who ever decided that this idea was a good one should be ashamed, like some of you have raised in subject, what was wrong with how it used to be!? :cool:

sarahlouise210

I completely agree that tax credits are far too generous....they encourage people to work less or for lower wages. If the tax credits are on offer we are all going to take them but when our children get older..we are all in a right state as we have got used to the income coming in . The idea was to bring children out of poverty but what they have actually done is enable us to have luxuries that would never have been possible before. The really young adult knows no different - they see tax credits as an easy option..which it is.
I myself receive more in tax credits than I do in wages - my friend who is a single parent receives so much in tax credits that her total income is more than mine and my husbands put together (plus of course disregarded maintenance) ....the whole system is crazy and how they will ever take it away and return to a sane fair reasonable top up system I do not know

krisskross

funnyguy wrote:

thanx everyone for your comments...{I do not want to start a war though,lol},,,firstly from some of the comments it makes me see that I,m not the only one going to face this problem...Secondly the way working tax credit is worked out seriously needs to be looked at which causes this problem.While you have children you can claim working/child tax credit if you are working 16 or more hours a week.But when the child eliment finishes you can only claim the working tax if One of you is low paid working 30hours or more .So in a couples situation like mine where my wife works 25 hours and I was working 8 hours{just been cut to 5} per week,they will not count that as 30 hours{totally unfair}..so to summerise if one of us worked 30 hours on the pay we are getting now..our pay would be topped up by £30/40 week with tax credit..instead of nothing for us both working over 30hours a week..

funnyguy if you and your wife are able to work then you have no need of any benefits. You both will need to work more hours to fund whatever lifestyle you want. Between us me and 'im clocked up 90 years contributions in tax and NI. We now find ourselves in the position of paying tax on the pensions we paid for, so that cash can be handed out willy nilly. I bet we are not as well off as a lot of the people our taxes goes to. Because we have these pensions we are not entitled to help with anything. Quite honestly though I prefer it that way, we fill in no forms, budget to live within our means and do not feel we have to vote Labour, we have taken none of their bribes.

bonnie_2

My point exactly, when we saw the cab for our dmp she made sure we were getting all the benifits we were entitled to.
However in 8 years time we will be back down to £241 and won't be able to claim anything apart form my dla of £15 a week, which is my point.
The government tell you to claim these benifits, i had 3 children before i got anything, i used to work at the hospital cleaning the wards form 7.30 to 11 at night. i never saw my hubby or kids.
Then i got diagnosed with di george syndrome and lupus, i also have osteoarthiritis and scoliosis so it's doubtful i could work with all the time i am ill, i could have an operation for my stomach problems but have been told i could die or end up having a bag for my poo, not nice. so i suffer on.

krisskross

bonnie wrote:

My point exactly, when we saw the cab for our dmp she made sure we were getting all the benifits we were entitled to.
However in 8 years time we will be back down to £241 and won't be able to claim anything apart form my dla of £15 a week, which is my point.
The government tell you to claim these benifits, i had 3 children before i got anything, i used to work at the hospital cleaning the wards form 7.30 to 11 at night. i never saw my hubby or kids.
Then i got diagnosed with di george syndrome and lupus, i also have osteoarthiritis and scoliosis so it's doubtful i could work with all the time i am ill, i could have an operation for my stomach problems but have been told i could die or end up having a bag for my poo, not nice. so i suffer on.

If I were you bonnie I would be paying a minimum of £250 a month into an ISA so when the 8 years is up you will have best part of £30,000 to cushion the blow.

buxtonrabbitgreen

liney wrote:

Although I think entitledto.com is a great tool, I do think it makes it very easy for people to sit fiddling with figures to work out how they can do the least work for the most money.

I firmly believe there should be an upper limit for benefits per family. £600 per week - how much would have to earn to take that home nowdays? £40k? more? It should be calculated when the family claims, and they should not increase if the family puts themselves in a worse situation such as working less hours, or having additional children.

I'm not poking at anyone here. The system is at fault, not the persons claiming what they can.

I find myself getting a bit hot under the collar with this thread. Child tax credits were brought in to eradiate child poverty, and surely they have largely done this. I have 5 children from age 12 to 33 and for most of these years we struggled to provide them with what they needed. The child tax credits were brought in quite a while after i had my last child, so i din't have more children for the credits, though they have been very useful a my OH has been made redundant 4 times over the past 5 years.