MSE News: Child benefit cut to hit 1 million next Monday

jobdone1

I totally agree with you FBABY. I work hard do overtime pay all my bills school fees/meals etc so why should they not be entitled to child benefit.

What about the ones who choose to have half a dozen kids lives on benefits should that not be capped to a max of child benefit for 2 for arguments sake.

But as usual penalize the hard working class.

zagfles

michaels wrote: »

Just for interest, if you can afford to:

Salary 60k, 3 kids, after tax/benefits about 40k
Salary sacrifice 48k to pension to make salary minimum wage (12k)
Net after tax/benefits about 22k.

Loss of income 18k.
Increase in pension 48k

If you have no savings you can also get free school meals, council tax benefit etc.

Loss to the exchequer 30k

Law of unintended consequences?

I think people are increasing realising this - many on £60k+ incomes have large amounts in savings, and if they're going to sacrifice £10k to a pension, why not go further and sacrifice more, gaining them tax credits as well, particularly if they have 3+ kids.

With 4 kids, the tax credit limit is about £45k, or even higher with childcare, so once you start sacrificing below that level you start getting tax credits as well as child ben. Worth thinking about if you have savings to live off...

Gentile

zagfles wrote: »

I think people are increasing realising this - many on £60k+ incomes have large amounts in savings, and if they're going to sacrifice £10k to a pension, why not go further and sacrifice more, gaining them tax credits as well, particularly if they have 3+ kids.

With 4 kids, the tax credit limit is about £45k, or even higher with childcare, so once you start sacrificing below that level you start getting tax credits as well as child ben. Worth thinking about if you have savings to live off...

Some of the policies are brought in to help people in genuine need and tackle some extreme circumstance. However, this country is so awash with people who feel "entitled" that they go about hunting loopholes and fiddling the system in such a way that they can exploit the loophole legally and on "paper". Same goes for huge corporations who avoid tax and very high earners who pay no tax. They all exploit policies in place intended to help some one else.

zagfles

Gentile wrote: »

Some of the policies are brought in to help people in genuine need and tackle some extreme circumstance. However, this country is so awash with people who feel "entitled" that they go about hunting loopholes and fiddling the system in such a way that they can exploit the loophole legally and on "paper". Same goes for huge corporations who avoid tax and very high earners who pay no tax. They all exploit policies in place intended to help some one else.

One thing to remember before attempts to moralise about using specifically allowable tax reliefs, is that the UK has one of the world's most family unfriendly tax systems already, and this child benefit change will make it worse.

In most countries families are taxed as families, each person getting an allowance rather than each earner. Eg in France someone on £60k supporting a wife and 4 kids would pay far, far less tax than here, as they'd 5 tax allowances to set off against their income. They get treated the same as 5 earners on £12k would. Here the £60k earner gets treated the same whether single with no kids, or whether he has 5 other people to support.

The tax rules have limits on pension tax relief. The govt could easily reduce the allowance for pension contributions, in fact they just have. Using the pension allowance within those limits set by the govt is no more of a "loophole" than using the full ISA allowance.

Gaz1971

If you earn 50k a year and need benefits, you should hang your head in shame. £960 quid a week income and you need benefits?

The only thing worse than people claiming this are the idiots who have been authorising this for years.

FBaby

Gaz1971 wrote: »

If you earn 50k a year and need benefits, you should hang your head in shame. £960 quid a week income and you need benefits?

The only thing worse than people claiming this are the idiots who have been authorising this for years.

FGS, it's not about need, it's about entitlement. Most on £50k don't NEED CB, however, in light of the fact that they are most likely to work long hours, in stressful positions, having to travel further to work, had student loans to repay, and of course, already contributing a large share of their pay, they feel that it was only fair they should be entitled to something back.

One can agree or disagree, however, I do understand the feeling of disbelief that the gap in disposable income between those who top up their income with significant amounts of benefits and those who work hard and get nothing seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

Gentile

FBaby wrote: »

FGS, it's not about need, it's about entitlement. Most on £50k don't NEED CB, however, in light of the fact that they are most likely to work long hours, in stressful positions, having to travel further to work, had student loans to repay, and of course, already contributing a large share of their pay, they feel that it was only fair they should be entitled to something back.

One can agree or disagree, however, I do understand the feeling of disbelief that the gap in disposable income between those who top up their income with significant amounts of benefits and those who work hard and get nothing seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

I think that was the general idea of Labour, to make the gap as small as possible and make everybody equal regardless of if they worked or not. When people starting feeling rich without doing any work they tend to vote like monkeys and keep them in power for as long as they can.

jobdone1

Gaz1971 wrote: »

If you earn 50k a year and need benefits, you should hang your head in shame. £960 quid a week income and you need benefits?

The only thing worse than people claiming this are the idiots who have been authorising this for years.

Ok don't like your argument, So lets say top rate tax payer earning over £150000 gets a tax cut from 50p to 45p from april 2013 so thats wrong as well is it in your view because this is the kind of argument that you are portraying

SF1978

Well after just paying 4.5k tax bill this month I'm glad to see that the usual wasters who always seem to be the ones causing trouble outside my home will be keeping a bit more beer money along with the housing benefit and they can still stay in bed while I get up to go to London every week as jobs are to few where I grew up in the midlands. I can't move to London because of all the high skilled workers pushing up housing prices. (mmm yeah high skilled cough a few %! who contribute)

Then on the other side I see the Tories saying the tax avoidance of big tax dodgers is actually the laws fault and we should not expected moral or reputational type ethics i.e. doing the right Bl00dy thing for the greater good of the people where you are allowed to trade is quite acceptable.

I just feel stuck in the middle, well I've never minded paying my tax before, but tbh I'm thinking of going contracting and playing the tax avoidance system myself 500 a day and quote "tax savy" - FED up of all of them.

MissMoneypenny

Gentile wrote: »

Why ? You want the government to hand out dough which it doesnt have ?

Labour invented a forth class, the "entitled to" class. This class are going to find it hard to go back to living within their means. Some haven't known anything else!