Parent stay at home looking after the kids?

Spendless

livinginhope wrote:

I agree totally with the other half getting the extra tax allowance,BTW,whatever happened to married couples allowance? why did they stop that no incentives for people to get married.

It finished (for most people*) april 2000. A year later in April 2001 an extra tax allowance (I forget its name) was fetched in for those who had children. This in turn was changed to our current child tax credit system in april 2003.

*I say most people because if you are born before a certain date (sometime in the 1930s but not completely sure of date) and married you can still claim married couples allowance.

HTH

BernadetteN

conradmum wrote:

I agree it doesn't make any sense. Also, how can a family on benefits receive 2040 in tax credits if they aren't paying any tax?
Maybe if your calculations made sense your MP would take your letter more seriously.
Families with two working parents get more tax relief because there are two people contributing to the economy rather than just one.

A family on benefits now no longer gets Income Support for the children. Instead their child support is given in the form of CHILD TAX CREDIT. Yes this does seem an odd thing to do when the family is paying no tax but that's the way it happens now.

I also did the number crunching regards benefits V working a few months ago, whilst I was unpaid maternity leave and we had only one income to share between the 6 of us. My husband is a relatively high earner eg gross income of 35k per annum and therefore the difference in our net household income v possible income from benefits (we would not be claiming Incapacity or DLA or anything extra) was 25k net earned V 20k benefits. Therefore my husband was working 40-60 hours per week for a total extra household income of just 5k per annum..... this got me back to work pretty quickly.

I do resent the fact that we would be little better off if we had just one parent working and we both have to work to have a substantially better income, whereas both parents could instead sit at home all day like many thousands, perhaps millions, of other UK residents who chose not to work. But what can be done about it other than to tighten the definition of those who claim IB and set time limits on JSA and IS for certain people so that these benefits cannot be claimed indefinitely?

seven-day-weekend

As regards Incapacity Benefit, if someone's illness/disability does not improve to the level where they can work, why shouldn't they remain on it indefinitely?

milkydrink

seven-day-weekend wrote:

As regards Incapacity Benefit, if someone's illness/disability does not improve to the level where they can work, why shouldn't they remain on it indefinitely?

While genuine sick/disabled people should be well looked after by the state, there is a large number of people who make a career from IB or Sick benefit (or whatever it is) & the disabled car bit is taken the mick out of as well. I do know people who work this system to their advantage.

seven-day-weekend

But you can't 'punish' the ones that fiddle without penalising the majority of genuine claimants.

If you were only allowed to claim IB say for a year, because of people fraudulently claiming, what happens to the genuinely sick/disabled people?

And don't forget, not all disabilities are visible. I would not just assume someone does not have a disability just because you can't see it.

milkydrink

seven-day-weekend wrote:

But you can't 'punish' the ones that fiddle without penalising the majority of genuine claimants.

If you were only allowed to claim IB say for a year, because of people fraudulently claiming, what happens to the genuinely sick/disabled people?

And don't forget, not all disabilities are visible. I would not just assume someone does not have a disability just because you can't see it.

Yes of course you are right, genuine people will need help their lifetime.

But their are loads that milk it too & aren't genuine. It's just a shame they get away with it.
It's like genuine single parents who have a little part-time cash in hand job are hounded equally or more than women who send their live in boyfriends out to work while they stay at home & claim, I know which I think is worse!!
But you see programmes on TV of them trapping early morning cleaners & such, get the women with live in boyfriends & sick fiddlers who can't even be bother to work, at least these women are just trying to get a few extra quid for their families, if they could get on the sick they would probably get more benefit in the first place & not need to take rip off cash in hand jobs.

immoral_angeluk

Am I the only one who doesn't understand all those numbers and benefits???

milkydrink

immoral_angeluk wrote:

Am I the only one who doesn't understand all those numbers and benefits???

Thats the point I'm making, it's those that "understand" it that abuse it!! They know how too!! Where your average OAP (who is very derserving IMHO) doesn't know how to work/milk it.

IB is incapacity benefit & I think it may be paid for life (but not sure on this) & I think it's a lot more than dole or single parent money which is one of the reasons why they all want to get on it & that it's for life (I think?).

Fran

BernadetteN wrote:

whilst I was unpaid maternity leave and we had only one income to share between the 6 of us. My husband is a relatively high earner eg gross income of 35k per annum and therefore the difference in our net household income v possible income from benefits (we would not be claiming Incapacity or DLA or anything extra) was 25k net earned V 20k benefits. Therefore my husband was working 40-60 hours per week for a total extra household income of just 5k per annum..... this got me back to work pretty quickly.

Even with the extra you would have got in tax credits for a new baby I can't see how you could have been entitled to £20K of benefits. Can you explain the breakdown of this?

But what can be done about it other than to tighten the definition of those who claim IB and set time limits on JSA and IS for certain people so that these benefits cannot be claimed indefinitely?

What exactly do you think will happen when you remove these benefits? People will become homeless and have no money! Don't complain about the increase in crime if that happens.

Fran

24skins wrote:

This is a copy of the post I originally made in the cutting tax board.

Yes this thread was started on the Cutting Tax board and has now been moved to Discussions board.