Child Benefit axed for higher income families

tiff

Youre assuming the people you are talking about arent already doing that!

tooldle

In response to the comments about two income families receiving the benefit, for a one income family earning 47K there will be no child benefit. For a two income family earning 2 x 38K there will be child Benefit. The two earners will be contributing two lots of tax and NI. Is this the point, to get both partners working?

clairehi

snugglepet20 wrote: »

Yet another silly idea, do you have to have your brain removed to work in government? In order to save axe the child benefit and put child tax credit up to benefit those that need it according to circumstance, the system is already up and running, no need to employ another 500 admin workers to sort it out. Think about it you earn 46k and have 1 child, not really losing much, 6 children and it's quite a lot of money.

great post I completely agree and you beat me to it!

The only reason I can think of why David Cameron will not do this is that Tax Credits was a Labour idea and he would not want to be seen to be endorsing it.

minerva_windsong

They've done it cheaply, not fairly (because doing it truly fairly, ie setting a threshold of total household income exceeding, say, £50k, would cost time, money and more civil servants). Plus in my view it represses women - the whole point of Child Benefit was that it was paid to the primary caregiver, usually the mother, so they wouldn't have to go begging to the breadwinner to feed and clothe the kids. I think they've just gone for a cheap headline in the Fail as opposed to investing now to make things more equal in the long run.

Kimberley82

scrap the whole thing.

tessie_bear

i never thought id agree with the tories but i think this seems fair...apart from the fact one parent would not get the money but 2 parents earning a £1 less would iyswim...we will loose it for our 2 kids so better make the most of it for the next 2 years

gull5426

what an interesting topic.

my opinion is that it should be scrapped for high earners.
what i think is a high earner and what someone else thinks is probably two different amounts.George osbourne has not gone far enough for me.

I think it should be scrapped for joint family incomes over 44k.
Me and my wife jointly earn about 26k,we have no kids by choice.
we have no debts and have paid off our mortgage 10 years ago and have always earned near to the low end of the earnings scale.but we are happy with our life, with what we have got. we are only 39 and 40.

We have always lived within our budget, which is what we learnt from our parents.spend more than you earn and then you are in trouble.

catkins

aylithuk wrote: »

As someone that wants children however currently doesn't have any I'd like to say

whatever happen to 'affording children'

I am very hardliner about this. Surely *most* people plan children so they must have the 'talk' about costs?

I don't have any children right now because I simply cannot afford them the lifestyle they would need.

If you are earning 44k a year and cannot bring up a child or 2 without benefits then there is something wrong!

my 2 cents

From my own experience, if you speak to couples with children most of them DID NOT plan their children. A lot are "accidents" and a lot of couples just have children because supposedly "it is the thing you do"!!

I have known quite a lot of couples who get married having known each other quite a few years and then find one of them wants children and one does not!!!! Didn't they talk?

I only knew OH 5 months before we got married but we discussed every aspect of how we wanted our lives to go. We talked an awful lot about children and decided that, for lots of reasons, we would not have any.

catkins

doctorseuss wrote: »

Ok I'll bite. I live in London. My fixed outgoings incl. rent, nursery, travel, utilities etc come to about £3200 pcm. We have no debts whatsoever & no credit cards, no pay-TV.

Let's say you're two people, one earns above average, lets say 45K and the other earns say 30K. I make that about 4K take home (very approximately). So you have less than £200 a week to feed, clothe & entertain your family. I don't know where you live, but in London this is about the minimum you can get away on. What happens when something goes wrong and you need fork out a few hundred quid? Answer: you do indeed struggle, even on 45K a year.

How many children are you talking about? I know London is expensive but it does not cost £200 to feed, clothe and entertain a normal size family.

Jo.G

We will be affected by this cut because my OH earns over the threshold. I also work but earn nowhere near the threshold. When my OH got his pay rise I took the opportunity to reduce my hours. This means I can pick the kids up from school 3 days a week and during holidays I work 4 long days and have a full day off with them. My OH works long hours with a 40 mile commute each way. He is often away overnight and works bloody hard in a stressful job. We are by no means rich. We dont get tax credits to help pay for childcare, and the little we got before we earned too much didnt even cover a days childcare. I dont 'need' my CB on a weekly basis. It goes into a savings account. However, sometimes I need to dip into it to help pay for childcare over the summer holidays when it costs 4 times as much. Or to help with school trips or the activities my kids do. I dont budget it into my weekly shop. So, fair enough, if we arent entitled to it fine. But do it fairly. This is by no means fair, its being done this way as it's the easiest, cheapest way to implement. But its hard to be happy about it. My CB is my spare cash, my little emergency pot if you like. Come 2013, despite me paying tax and my OH paying much more, we will be £1752 pa worse off. It was just nice to be given something back. It would be easier to take if it was done on household income and as others have said incorporated into the WTC system.