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

chucky

carolt wrote: »

I am very strongly against, and think there will be a huge middle class blacklash against this - as Graham says, I think this will be the 10p tax rate fiasco for the Tories.

Am really angry - we will be affected, but are a long way off being 'rich'. The whole premise - that the person earning 18K shouldn't pay towards benefits for those on 50K is flawed, as that ignores the fact that the family on 18K will get:

carolt wrote: »

As you can probably tell, I am REALLY, REALLY ANGRY.

carolt wrote: »

Pah. FURIOUS. :mad:

you can be as angry and as furious as you like but it really is quite simple - the family on £18k is much more in need of child benefit than those on single or a combined income of £50k.

bootman

chucknorris wrote: »

I know a few couples who will be receiving child benefit who have luxury cars (ie over 35k), now there is no way that their children would ever go without, so the child benefit is actually being used to fund buying a better car. Obviously this will not apply in all cases and in some it might be more on the margin (ie funding a better car/other item to a much lesser extent).

Or funding drinking days down at Weatherspoons for others. It does not matter that they have a nice car, they probably don't spend it on booze and fags.

drc

ukcarper wrote: »

I’d argue that anybody earning over twice the mean wage is well off.

Not if you live in London :mad:.

RenovationMan

carolt wrote: »

I am very strongly against, and think there will be a huge middle class blacklash against this - as Graham says, I think this will be the 10p tax rate fiasco for the Tories.

Am really angry - we will be affected, but are a long way off being 'rich'. The whole premise - that the person earning 18K shouldn't pay towards benefits for those on 50K is flawed, as that ignores the fact that the family on 18K will get:

their rent paid
tax credits of various types
council tax assistance
free medical/dental and optical care
free school lunches
free laptops
help with unfiform costs
etc etc etc

Plus will have work costs (transport, clothing etc) for only 1 person not 2, plus - most importantly of all! - have precious hours in their day to spend with their children, which a couple working and earning over 50K will not have. In practice, I would be very, very surprised if - certainly anywhere in the SE where rents are high - the take-home pay of the family on 18K weren't greater than the take-home pay of the family on 50K who aren't entitled to any benefits.

This just further decreases the incentives to go out to work, especially full-time.

Maybe I should persuade my OH now to go part-time - we're going to lose over £2250/year after tax - that is a LOT of money.

And how on earth does this tally with the Tories announcement earlier this week, that they're going to make work pay by allowing those who get a job to keep benefits? Does this mean that someone now unemployed who gets an identical job to me will keep the £2250 on top of other benefits, whilst we are punished because we've actually bothered to stay in work??? :mad:

As you can probably tell, I am REALLY, REALLY ANGRY. :mad:

It also is frankly a complete dog's dinner in terms of organisation - which idiot decided that it should be based on the income of the highest earner only? - bltant and frankly bizarre discrimination against families where one earner brings home most of the earnings - huge attack on stay-at-home mothers (or fathers) - who are already at a disadvantage in the tax-system which does not permit tax allowances to be transferred.

So much for the Tories supporting the traditional family!!

Pah. FURIOUS. :mad:

Leaving aside your emotional attack on people who dont work, which I feel just muddies the water. Do you really believe that people who earn over £43k should receive a benefit paid for by people who earn £20k?

Out of interest, what is your total household income? I feel that if you revealed that, you would be hard pressed to receive much sympathy from others on this forum who are struggling along on much less income. I'll start the ball rolling, our family income is close to £90k and I believe it's outrageous that we received Child Benefit paid for by much poorer people, familes and singles alike.

CLAPTON

well
I welcome this further simplification of the tax and benefits system ...

ILW

chucky wrote: »

and so it begins...

there will be many more massive blunders and people will start to want Labour to win the next General Election to get this 'blundering' Government out of power...

Part of the reason we got into this situation is because the labour government seemd to like chucking money at just about everybody. Why not just encourage people to go out and earn it, and if you cannot afford to raise children, do not have them.

shortchanged_2

The reason they are basing it on one persons income is becasue they don't want any stay at home parents anymore. They want BOTH parents working.

chucky

ILW wrote: »

Part of the reason we got into this situation is because the labour government seemd to like chucking money at just about everybody. Why not just encourage people to go out and earn it, and if you cannot afford to raise children, do not have them.

please don't try and make this into a party political broadcast to try and distract the fact that this hasn't been handled very well by the Coalition government.

chucknorris

bootman wrote: »

Or funding drinking days down at Weatherspoons for others. It does not matter that they have a nice car, they probably don't spend it on booze and fags.

Yes the arguement does of course extend to other things, for example:

Holidays
Boozing
Smoking
Golf club fees
Frequent restaurant outings
etc.

lostinrates

shortchanged wrote: »

The reason they are basing it on one persons income is becasue they don't want any stay at home parents anymore. They want BOTH parents working.

wouldn't that, in the first instance, simply boost unemployment figures?

I'd hope the aim is less state reliance...and hopefully they leave it to us to work out how that works best or how we best cope within that moved boundary.