MSE News: 'Re-think' over child benefit changes

philosophyalice

Why are they taking away money from higher rate taxpayers who happen to have children?

Wouldn't it be fairer to put 1p or 0.5p on the higher rate tax so all higher rate tax payers contribute rather than take it away just from people with kids?

Would raise a lot more money too, rather than penalising families.

Oh no, the tories wouldn't want to do that! Increasing tax is one thing, taking away benefits is another....

JimmyTheWig

Chomeur wrote: »

Wow. Frankly I think that if these plans had gone ahead it would have made sense for any parents earning say £50K p.a. to quit work and take up a stress free business (cake baking or painting or something) with a view to making £10K p.a. and then get all the benefits and have plenty of time to spend with their children.

Cake baking? Stress free?
I can't think of anything off-hand more stressful and rule-ridden than supplying food to the public for profit.

Chomeur

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Cake baking? Stress free?
I can't think of anything off-hand more stressful and rule-ridden than supplying food to the public for profit.

Maybe painting would be better. And if you can't sell any of your pictures you can hang them on your own walls.

shirlgirl2004

philosophyalice wrote: »

Why are they taking away money from higher rate taxpayers who happen to have children?

Wouldn't it be fairer to put 1p or 0.5p on the higher rate tax so all higher rate tax payers contribute rather than take it away just from people with kids?

Would raise a lot more money too, rather than penalising families.

Oh no, the tories wouldn't want to do that! Increasing tax is one thing, taking away benefits is another....

Some higher rate tax payers are already paying 50% tax soon they'll be better off claiming benefits. Lets think about it go to work knock yourself out working long hours, horrendous travel into London at extortionate cost and then tax them to the hilt or sit at home and get everything paid for you. It would be lovely to see the OH more maybe I should tell him I have a found a better way.

zagfles

philosophyalice wrote: »

Why are they taking away money from higher rate taxpayers who happen to have children?

Wouldn't it be fairer to put 1p or 0.5p on the higher rate tax so all higher rate tax payers contribute rather than take it away just from people with kids?

Would raise a lot more money too, rather than penalising families.

Oh no, the tories wouldn't want to do that! Increasing tax is one thing, taking away benefits is another....

Well as I posted above Labour did exactly the same, so there's no real difference between the parties on this. They are both obsessed with getting tax rates as low as possible, which means cutting allowances and benefits.

shirlgirl2004

zagfles wrote: »

Well as I posted above Labour did exactly the same, so there's no real difference between the parties on this. They are both obsessed with getting tax rates as low as possible, which means cutting allowances and benefits.

I think you mean they want to cut tax for the lower paid, Labour introduced the 50% rate for the better paid.

zagfles

shirlgirl2004 wrote: »

I think you mean they want to cut tax for the lower paid, Labour introduced the 50% rate for the better paid.

Yes, one month before the end of their 13 years in power! It was more of an elephant trap for the Tories than anything else, they knew it wouldn't raise much money (as has been proved).

Tax rates for the rich under Labour were on average far lower than under the Tories, for most of Thatcher's time the top rate was 60%, for all of Blair and most of Brown's time it was 40%.

Labour gave the rich massive tax breaks through pensions by allowing them to put well over £200,000 per year into a pension with full tax relief (A-day changes) with a total pot of well over a million. This govt have reduced it to around £50,000.

And don't forget the 20p tax rate farce, that was a tax rise for the lower paid!.

New Labour made great efforts to woo the rich - and have lots of multi-millionaire supporters. The child poverty targets which they defined were a giveaway - they are based on a percentage of median earnings rather than mean. You could be forgiven for assuming it's an irrelavent technical detail, but it isn't. It means the rich can get as rich as they want, and it won't affect the figures, because they are above the median anyway. And they did, the fat cats got much fatter between 1997 and 2010, and saw massive pay raises which the rest of us mere mortals could only dream of.

Instead they squeezed middle income people, since their targets meant they had to keep median income low to make the "child poverty" figures look good.

Carry on believing old stereotypes if you want...

shirlgirl2004

zagfles wrote: »

Yes, one month before the end of their 13 years in power! It was more of an elephant trap for the Tories than anything else, they knew it wouldn't raise much money (as has been proved).

Tax rates for the rich under Labour were on average far lower than under the Tories, for most of Thatcher's time the top rate was 60%, for all of Blair and most of Brown's time it was 40%.

Labour gave the rich massive tax breaks through pensions by allowing them to put well over £200,000 per year into a pension with full tax relief (A-day changes) with a total pot of well over a million. This govt have reduced it to around £50,000.

And don't forget the 20p tax rate farce, that was a tax rise for the lower paid!.

New Labour made great efforts to woo the rich - and have lots of multi-millionaire supporters. The child poverty targets which they defined were a giveaway - they are based on a percentage of median earnings rather than mean. You could be forgiven for assuming it's an irrelavent technical detail, but it isn't. It means the rich can get as rich as they want, and it won't affect the figures, because they are above the median anyway. And they did, the fat cats got much fatter between 1997 and 2010, and saw massive pay raises which the rest of us mere mortals could only dream of.

Instead they squeezed middle income people, since their targets meant they had to keep median income low to make the "child poverty" figures look good.

Carry on believing old stereotypes if you want...

I don't believe stereotypes but the fact is tax has risen to 50% from 40%. I don't doubt that you are right about Labour's motives. I also don't believe that a high tax rate is beneficial or generates more income. People will just find ways around it and many of the higher paid people have more opportunities to avoid paying punitive rates of tax.

I think we all know that the majority of politians are in it for themselves as has been demonstrated by the expenses scandle. All the parties court the multi-millionaires because they need the financial support and lets face it they get private perks as well as political perks..

The major problem is most of our society think not having satellite etc. puts you in the poverty group. I don't agree with the median as a way of defining poverty because I think it's too high. Poverty shouldn't be about what you don't have but what you do. If we look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs we need to provide the bottom 2 layers of the pyramid and that requires much less than most people think. You don't have to have tv, a car and shampoo these are all things that we are brainwashed into thinking we need, they are all things that if people can't afford they should do without. Some people don't know what poor is.

cw18

As someone who's received both Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit in the past (only just scraped in for a few £££s of tax credits some years - but none of my kids is a dependant any longer so I don't get either any more), I believe the fairest way is to merge it with tax credits if they want to means test it.

Tax Credits is based on household income, so this would get rid of the issue where a 'high earning' single parent who's just above the cap would lose it but a couple who earn just a bit less each wouldn't (and as such would have almost twice the income plus child benefit)

So what if it means they have to reinstate Tax Credits to some people they've just kicked out of the system - in theory all they'd qualify for would be the Child Benefit amount, and the government have to pay adminstration costs to get that to them one way or another.......

Case_Closed

Benefits cuts must be fair and be seen to be fair. The proposal to remove child benefit from single income earners whilst two-income families keep the benefit is clearly unjust. I am hoping and praying that this is changed. As a Deputy Head (one income, two kids) I will see a substantial drop in income next month when pension contributions go up. If this is coupled with loss of child benefit and possible mortgage rise, I will really struggle. I think I must be the squeezed middle!!