Child benefit U turn being lined up

zagfles

Generali wrote: »

But that's not very unfair. How many households do you think they are that earn hugely in excess of £45,000 where neither partner earns more than £45,000?

Given that the average salary is about £30k, probably quite a lot. A couple both on average salary would fit the bill. Where I work there are loads of couples who met at work and so do similar jobs and have similar salaries, probably in the £30-40k range.

My guess is not so many and if a few people happen to do slightly better than you out of a particular policy then good on them, you'll probably do well out of another one. Life isn't fair and it certainly isn't the job of the Government to try to make it so!

Look up the budgets of recent years and see how many times "fairness" is mentioned.

The point of the proposal AIUI was to make it cheap to administer.

Indeed. But when govt ministers themselves highlight the flaws in the policy before it's finalised you know they are going to change it...

Your tax credit idea is probably a good one but a better idea is to stop taking with one hand and giving with the other. When I was earning over a grand a week, I could have taken tax credits. I chose not to as I didn't feel it was necessary but they were certainly on offer to me.

You wouldn't have got much. As a matter of interest, would you turn down a tax allowance you didn't consider "necessary"?

Generali

zagfles wrote: »

You wouldn't have got much. As a matter of interest, would you turn down a tax allowance you didn't consider "necessary"?

AIUI, you have to pay your taxes within the tax laws prevailing so you must 'claim' your allowances on your tax return as the alternative is to mis-report your income which would presumably be a crime.

Tax credits needed to be claimed separately so I just never put a claim in. I believe I acted legally in doing so.

zagfles

Generali wrote: »

AIUI, you have to pay your taxes within the tax laws prevailing so you must 'claim' your allowances on your tax return as the alternative is to mis-report your income which would presumably be a crime.

Tax credits needed to be claimed separately so I just never put a claim in. I believe I acted legally in doing so.

Could be wrong, but as I remember the married couples/additional personal allowance had to be claimed, and I don't think it was compulsory to claim it (after all your partner could claim it instead).

Pennywise

Generali wrote: »

The point of the proposal AIUI was to make it cheap to administer.

Which it fails miserably to do so. Child benefit will CONTINUE to be paid to the main carer. For higher rate taxpayers, it will then be clawed back via their PAYE tax code or SA tax return. The PAYE system is already creaking under the strain and isn't set up for this - it will be a fiasco. The PAYE/SA tax system doesn't have records of taxpayer's spouses or children or whether child benefits are being paid. It will be down to the H/R taxpayer to tell HMRC as HMRC won't know by any other means. What if someone isn't a H/R taxpayer but receives a bonus or payrise which pushes them into H/R later in the year - many PAYE workers wouldn't even realise that they were into H/R tax - a bonus mid year may push someone into H/R tax for a month or two and then they'd go back to being B/R later if pay falls back again, so they paid a bit of H/R then got it back again - how can the PAYE system cope with that? The tax credit system is where all this belongs. Regardless of the blatent unfairness, it simply won't work under the PAYE/SA system.

Radiantsoul

Pennywise wrote: »

The PAYE system is already creaking under the strain and isn't set up for this - it will be a fiasco. The PAYE/SA tax system doesn't have records of taxpayer's spouses or children or whether child benefits are being paid. It will be down to the H/R taxpayer to tell HMRC as HMRC won't know by any other means. What if someone isn't a H/R taxpayer but receives a bonus or payrise which pushes them into H/R later in the year - many PAYE workers wouldn't even realise that they were into H/R tax - a bonus mid year may push someone into H/R tax for a month or two and then they'd go back to being B/R later if pay falls back again, so they paid a bit of H/R then got it back again - how can the PAYE system cope with that?

That has always been a concern of mine, the principle that people on high earnings probably ought not to receive benefits makes some sense. But the administration seems so complex, and with a new benefit system being implemented in the parliament(universal credit) it is only a short term fix.

Generali

zagfles wrote: »

Could be wrong, but as I remember the married couples/additional personal allowance had to be claimed, and I don't think it was compulsory to claim it (after all your partner could claim it instead).

I spent 6 months married under that regime but I was on PAYE so when I told the company that I worked for I got married they sorted it out.

AIUI, there was no cross over between the married allowance and working family tax credits.

lostinrates

One of the regulars left this board when rounded on for saying she thought losing her cb was unfair.


Fwiw, i disagreed with her, but miss her contribution to the board.


Re universal pensions....i think there is bery strong likelihood this will be means tested in the future. Whats more while i understand and agree under this system we need population growth for pendion provision, and it does not pay to be short sighted, i feel looking twenty, forty, sixty years into the future over this is too short sighted also. Long term it is unsustainable, and the grief will only be greater the longer we leave it to reconcile ourselves to this.


I feel universal benefits are in general a poor idea, they make people who can afford to think like givers into takers, not just in tax but imo other areas of their lives.


The money we need has to come from somewhere, and while i think its terribly unfair to apply it to person not household, i think paying people who have an alright if not luxuritous lifestyle to maintain their own kids is a better cut than removing more from kids whose lower income parents might have fewer choices in life (or some of the other cuts made )

Dan:_4

I have paid my taxes over the years - CB is time to get something back for a change, but should me made fair and only available for those who do not bring home huge salarys.

Running_Horse

Just abolish it and adjust tax codes accordingly.

Must be an administration saving in there somewhere.

sunshinetours

HMRC and related departments already have shown on countless occassions that they cannot administer correctly the overly complicated tax system we have had for the past generation.

A simple universal benefit is easily administerable and hard to mess up so I can't see how any changes will make any of this easier or cheaper to admninister