Child benefit U turn being lined up

Radiantsoul

nearlynew wrote: »

And the feminist movement's ultimate accomplishment?..........


Creating a situation where it now takes two people's income to pay for a house, whereas it used to take one.

This is surely a myth.
Women always worked, just in lower paid and skilled jobs. And mortgages for working class people were pretty uncommon before the 1960s when feminism arose.

chewmylegoff

Pennywise wrote: »

You're missing the point re unfairness. Under the proposals, a household with one worker earning £45k would lose all child benefit but their next door neighbours where both worked, earning, say, £40k each, would keep their child benefit despite a far higher household income. That's why the proposals were unfair. Not to mention the practicalities of the proposal which was to continue paying the child benefit to the mother, but to deduct it from the father's payslips - an administrative nightmare!

The Govt really shot themselves in the foot with this one and it does beg the question as to their competence when no politician, nor Treasury official, flagged this up before it was officially announced. Also, announcing it so far in advance and leaving a rectification so late in the day has allowed this open wound to fester and done the govt untold harm.

They should have simply scrapped it in the Budget and replaced it by increasing tax credits by the same amount, so that all families receiving tax credits would continue to receive the same overall amount, and families who's incomes were in excess of the tax credit threshold would receive nothing. Simple.

the fairness argument is easily remedied - just stop paying child benefit altogether and raise the income tax threshold for everyone. that way people can decide how to spend the extra money in their pockets, either on children or on whatever else they want to, without the government deciding who it thinks should have more money.

Fella

Pennywise wrote: »

You're missing the point re unfairness. Under the proposals, a household with one worker earning £45k would lose all child benefit but their next door neighbours where both worked, earning, say, £40k each, would keep their child benefit despite a far higher household income.

But that's exactly the situation that exists today with regular income tax. One worker earning 80K pays infinitely more tax than two workers earning £40K each.

The only difference is that because "child benefit" is nominally a benefit to children (even though in reality it's just extra income for their parents) there's been an uproar over it.

System

Infintely more, that's a lot!

Fella

Joeskeppi wrote: »

Infintely more, that's a lot!

If you're going to be a pedant you need to learn how to spell. Or type.

System

Boy do I look foolish now.

Percy1983

How about cutting it and people pay for there own children, you know the ones they decided to have.

No we don't have children, yes we do plan to have them, but why should other people pay for our children when we have them?

sunshinetours

chewmylegoff wrote: »

the fairness argument is easily remedied - just stop paying child benefit altogether and raise the income tax threshold for everyone. that way people can decide how to spend the extra money in their pockets, either on children or on whatever else they want to, without the government deciding who it thinks should have more money.

That is the plan for Cleggs lot anyway I believe. If you do that however you also need to trim the 40% threshold otherwise higher rate tax payers also benefit from higher personal allowances.

Just shows whoever is in power rolls out poor legislation time after time just to get it through in time. At least with plenty of advance notice like we have now there is time to change these things before its enacted

sunshinetours

Percy1983 wrote: »

How about cutting it and people pay for there own children, you know the ones they decided to have.

No we don't have children, yes we do plan to have them, but why should other people pay for our children when we have them?

Keeping it in proportion, I wouldn't say anyone is paying for our kids apart from us. Child benefit isn't a huge amount of money but ot does make a difference to many families

Should those without kids not pay a proportion of taxes that go into funding education - principle is no different as its only those with kids that benefit from it (ignoring the obvious fact that everyone benefits at some point from that of course)

Mrs_Bones

The government plans for changing child benefit were unfair, there is no getting away from that fact. Why should one family with a wage earner getting £45k lose their CB when next door could be earning £80k and keep theirs.

If child benefit is going to remain it should stay a universal benefit for all. There should be limits on it though, two children maximum. If people want large families fine, but they shouldn't get any extra money from the state for that personal choice.