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

lostinrates

Really2 wrote: »

I did it on one earner @ £18K with one child living in privately rented housing and the result was.



Entitlement per year per week notes
Means-tested income entitlements
Tax Credits-Initial Tax Credit £2,940.75 £56.40
Tax Credits £2,940.75 £56.40 Working tax credit and child tax credit.
Other income entitlements
Child Benefit £1,058.50 £20.30
Total Entitlements £3,999.25 £76.70 weekly

On the rent part you have to put in your HB allowance, so you must have filled that in Carol.

Goodness, what a Time waster this is. I didn't do LHA thingy, but on the stuff above total was £7001.11pa or £134.27 weekly for a couple both in work earning £13k and £5k.

bendix

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:

Booooh bloody hooo.

You are middle class. Why do you need me to help pay for your offspring? Where is your sense of personal responsibility - paying for kids you have yourself, when you have the means to do it.

The Tories do support the concept of traditional family. The last time I looked, there was nothing in that concept of traditional family which went: 'middle class family with ample income, have kids, go cap in hand to state to pay for those kids.'

carolt

harz99 wrote: »

Just a small point; Madmonk's post reads to me as though the takehome pay is £18k, not the salary before deductions.

Do calculators like "entitled to" as was, use the actual salary rather than takehome for their calculations? If so the results may well be in line with MMs post?

Fair point - I took it as 18K as gross - but can't see the disparity being huge.

My point was that those on 18K, whom are quoted by George Osborne specifically as justification for the changes - his 'it isn't fair to expect a family on 18K to pay from their taxes towards benefits for those earning 50K' - may actually be earning virtually the same as the family with one earner on 44K and one scraping together a tiny mount of income through part-time work - eg typical working family I know (and I'd include my own family in this).

How does this reward hard work? Why bother trying to progress in your career or take on extra hours, if you're just going to be penalised for it.

It's clear - under the Tories, work doesn't pay.

carolt

bendix wrote: »

Booooh bloody hooo.

You are middle class. Why do you need me to help pay for your offspring? Where is your sense of personal responsibility - paying for kids you have yourself, when you have the means to do it.

The Tories do support the concept of traditional family. The last time I looked, there was nothing in that concept of traditional family which went: 'middle class family with ample income, have kids, go cap in hand to state to pay for those kids.'

Fine in principle - but why one law for the 'middle class' with one higher rate earner (not clear personally what class has to do with it - did you mean to say middle income???) and one law for those with 2 very slightly lower earners but a far higher overall salary? And another law for those who don't bother to work at all?

silvercar

bendix wrote: »

Booooh bloody hooo.

You are middle class. Why do you need me to help pay for your offspring? Where is your sense of personal responsibility - paying for kids you have yourself, when you have the means to do it.

The Tories do support the concept of traditional family. The last time I looked, there was nothing in that concept of traditional family which went: 'middle class family with ample income, have kids, go cap in hand to state to pay for those kids.'

Anyone who thinks that child benefit is sufficient to pay the extra costs that go with having kids is living in lala land.

bendix

Am I the only one who thinks it's rather shameful that this post is full of reasonably affluent people - certainly not people on the breadline - who are feverishly working out what this change to the benefits system means to them?

A change to the benefits system should - in principle - mean NOTHING to 80-90% of the working population, and yet here we have crypto-middle class dinkies up in arms because a benefit they don't need and shouldn't get is about to be taken away from them.

When the middle class are up in arms about losing a benefit - well,that tells me there is something fundamentally wrong with that society.

carolt

Generali wrote: »

Please correct me if I'm wrong but you work as a teacher, is that right? So you make, what, £25,000 a year? Your other half is on £44,000 or more.

You make £69,000+ between you and you can't make ends meet so require single people on £10-15,000pa to make up your income.

Wrong on too many counts to be bothered correcting.

I don't make £25,000/year, I don't work full-time as I have childcare responsibilities, and single people on 10-15K get benefits to top up their income anyway - their net contribution is zero.

bendix

silvercar wrote: »

Anyone who thinks that child benefit is sufficient to pay the extra costs that go with having kids is living in lala land.

Irrelevant. Middle class families - be definition - can and must pay for their own kids and NOT rely on the the state to pay for them.

To suggest otherwise is outrageous.

Since when has it been normal for middle class families to think it's ok that the government financially assists with raising children? !!!!!!.

Really2

lostinrates wrote: »

Goodness, what a Time waster this is. I didn't do LHA thingy, but on the stuff above total was £7001.11pa or £134.27 weekly for a couple both in work earning £13k and £5k.

So it works out better if they are both part time.
But on £18K who could afford to work part time? Child care costs?

bendix

carolt wrote: »

Fine in principle - but why one law for the 'middle class' with one higher rate earner (not clear personally what class has to do with it - did you mean to say middle income???) and one law for those with 2 very slightly lower earners but a far higher overall salary? And another law for those who don't bother to work at all?

How about rising above the benefit culture, carolt? Instead of getting angry that someone is getting a benefit and you're going to lose your's how about taking a line that says . . "hey, I don't need it, I shouldn't have it . . end of discussion?"