Child benefit to be scrapped for higher rate tax payers from 2013

bendix

carolt wrote: »

If I didn't need it, if it meant nothing, no you're right, I wouldn't be bothering - but it does mean a lot to me.

It means I shall have to find more work and my children will see me even less, and when they do, I shall be even more tired. 44K to bring up a family is a tiny, tiny amount, certainly in the South East. Typical rent/mortgage of family home is going to be easily 50% of that take-home pay almost everywhere in the SE.
On the other hand, the children of those who don't work at all will have parents who can actually afford to spend quality time with them - and people wonder why our country is going to the dogs.

Children can't bring themselves up - if you create a situation where all the potentially good role models never actually get to spend time with their families because they are out woring every hour there is, is this really going to benefit the country in the long term?

I despair.

Tough.

I shouldn't subsidise your kids. End of the argument.

WestonDave

I wonder if this is a bit of a smokescreen. Firstly the fact that they will continue paying it to all parents and then expect higher earners to declare it on their tax returns to have it deducted leaves a door open for massive evasion (not avoidance as technically it should be being paid back) - question as to whether that will be followed up given that a lot of higher rate payers don't in fact have to complete a tax return.

Secondly I think this is a first step towards canning it altogether as part of a trailed wider change to the benefits system that gets rid of all these different benefits and allowances in favour of a single credit system - hopefully one that contains less incentive to keep producing kids to get more benefits and bigger houses, and is also hopefully focused around ensuring that benefits cannot be better than earning even at low rates. (So benefits are equivalent to less than earning minimum wage plus credits). They can't get rid of CB altogether without breaking a manifesto promise, and they are already talking about spreading the benefits reform over two parliaments to spread the cost - hence why this is just a halfway stage at this point.

Thirdly I think this may be a softner up to hammering down on other benefits - on the basis that if anyone complains about cuts in other benefits they can point back to this proposal as being one that hits the rich.

On that basis I think we have to wait and see what the overall package is by 2013 (or even 2015) and also see if the two income issue is addressed in part by allowing transferrable tax allowances within married couples.

RenovationMan

chucknorris wrote: »

You are not alone

Definitely not alone. I would also add that I think its disgusting for someone in an affluent family to pick apart the benefits paid to a family on the breadline and claim that its 'unfair'. If they are so convinced its a paradise for low income families, then perhaps they should give up working?

carolt

chewmylegoff wrote: »

this is the "entitlement" effect. you've previously been paid child benefit, so you have convinced yourself that you are entitled to it and it is enormously unfair for it to be taken away.

personally, i think it is enormously unfair that for many years i paid tax which subsidised the upbringing of your children when i earned less money than you. it is still the case that i am paying tax to fund child benefits payments to people who earn more than i do. it's ludicrous. pay for your own children.

We've discussed this before - the child benefit doesn't pay me, it pays them - you received child benefit as a child and now pay it back through your taxes. So will my children repay their early 'loan' of child benefit through their taxes when they're older.

The reason they don't do it now is because they're small children and in this country mercifully we're civilised enough no longer to expect small children to work up chimneys etc to pay their own way.

If you imagine that bringing up 3 children costs less than the amount I get in child benefit than you're clearly living in cloud cuckoo land. :rotfl:

Graham_Devon

LilacPixie wrote: »

AFAIK you are right. telegraph says HH income but other sources including this site are saying its being removed if the person claiming is a HRTP. MSE newspost also says that means couples earning 80k+ will still get it as long as neither pay 40% tax.

Bizzarly that means my family will still get it despite having a household income of over 60k. Very strange.

Well i don't know what's going on. All I heard was that the person paying 40% tax would not be entitled. Therefore I assumed, especially with what was being said, the other parent, if not paying 40% tax could receive CB.

If you look at the figures, it says 1.2 million families will be effected.

Surely there are more than 1.2 million families where one person pays 40% tax and the family claims CB?

It all lead me to believe, probably wrongly, that what it means is a higher rate tax payer will not be able to claim CB. Doesn't neccesarily mean their partner won't be able to?

And if their partner ISN'T able to, as it's all being done through the PAYE and SA system, how will it be worked out that Mrs Smith can't claim because Mr Smith earns over the threshold? You'd need to means test?

I just don't want to cause any more confusion. But looking at the amount of people this will impact on, it doesn't seem nearly enough people to state that if one of the parents pay 40% tax, CB is removed.

The biggest thing here is how will it be sorted? Are they expecting the person claimg CB to inform the correct people that their partner pays 40% tax and therefore tell the government they are not entitled to CB? That's the only way I can see it working?

Really2

lostinrates wrote: »

I did children aged over five, so that the hours of childcare could be absorbed ito school time, with one partner working low waged longer hours and one working 1-15 hours a week...probably very few hours.

Does anybody else imagine the family?:o:D Do the kids have names etc?

How many children did you put down? I only put one in mine.

As A parent I could see no benefit of 2 working part time, you would increase your cost base (travel, work clothes etc).
Also you would be fairly lucky to get part time jobs that were between 10am & 3PM so you would not get any child care costs.
If we lost one of our jobs I could see no reason to both wanting/needing to work part time.
The long term solution would be 1 full time & one at home if it ever got to that.

StevieJ

It doesn't make sense, Osborne says the alternative ('i.e. to make it fair) would involve a complex mechanism of means testing, then the next minute he says that higher rate tax payers will be expected to declare themselves whether they are entitled to child benefit. Surely they could declare themselves that they had a household income above a certain figure. Anyone think this is joined up thinking?

Asked whether this was an anomaly in the proposal, Mr Osborne said the alternative was to introduce a "complex" system of means testing where all households had their incomes assessed.
People will be expected to declare on their tax returns whether they fall within the 40% and 50% tax brackets and the money will then be clawed back through the tax system.

RenovationMan

carolt wrote: »

It means I shall have to find more work and my children will see me even less, and when they do, I shall be even more tired. 44K to bring up a family is a tiny, tiny amount, certainly in the South East.

According to generali your family income is LOT more than £44k.

drc

I'm going to encourage my OH to only work 9 months of the year to keep his income out of the higher rate bracket. That way he pays;

a) less tax and NI
b) we will still be entitled to child benefit
c) me and the kids will see more of him.

So much for the coalition's promise of making work pay.

chewmylegoff

LilacPixie wrote: »

AFAIK you are right. telegraph says HH income but other sources including this site are saying its being removed if the person claiming is a HRTP. MSE newspost also says that means couples earning 80k+ will still get it as long as neither pay 40% tax.

Bizzarly that means my family will still get it despite having a household income of over 60k. Very strange.

i do find the fact that it's only targeted at higher rate taxpayers rather than being on the basis of household income to be a bit odd.

yeah bit odd.

2 x £30k = take home of £45,250pa
1 x £60k = take home of £41,700pa

so you're already paying £3.5k more in tax before you lose the benefit. doesn't really make that much sense, although i suppose you could argue that the 2 x £30k are likely to have higher childcare costs.