Child Benefit Question

Gentile

HappyMJ wrote: »

Earning £60,000 and taking home £800 a week is hardly top earning. If they have a mortgage at 3.75 times their income and the interest rate was 5% then the mortgage payment takes up £300 of that. They'd be left with £500 which isn't that much...a family on benefits gets more.

If the benefits bill is very high and is rising obviously the tax payer will be taxed more to pay for this rising bill. This was how Labour operated, to bring the standard of living of the poor up to the same level as others who are comfortably well off.

Billions are being spent to achieve this, but thankfully they are no longer in power to achieve the socialist utopia they wanted and we have the new guys trying to reverse the excesses. Yet, we find that the top earners do not want to co operate and fight against this and try to find loophole. There is no way then to maximise returns to the hard working tax payer and cut benefits to those "families" you refer to in your post.

HappyMJ

Gentile wrote: »

Agreed. We should not be less well off than those families. But is the answer trying to grab something from the diminishing pot to enrich ourselves or is the answer trying to get better at our job, work harder in our job and uplift ourselves ?

Just how much more harder do you want people to work? £60,000 is a very good salary it requires a lot skills, experience, responsibility and qualifications to at least get that much money....I've never earnt that and I know that I never will...but after taxes it's only £800 a week....so let's take £3,146 off them for having 4 children (I don't know if OP has but it's the group worst affected) and make them poorer than people who earn less money. There is zero point in improving oneself if it's all just taken from you. I've been in well paid stressfull jobs before and there is no way I'd do that for no extra money in my pocket.

If the OP can reduce gross income by doing something like increasing pension contributions they will be much better off in the long term.

Gentile wrote: »

If the benefits bill is very high and is rising obviously the tax payer will be taxed more to pay for this rising bill. This was how Labour operated, to bring the standard of living of the poor up to the same level as others who are comfortably well off.

Billions are being spent to achieve this, but thankfully they are no longer in power to achieve the socialist utopia they wanted and we have the new guys trying to reverse the excesses. Yet, we find that the top earners do not want to co operate and fight against this and try to find loophole. There is no way then to maximise returns to the hard working tax payer and cut benefits to those "families" you refer to in your post.

This really is discussion time stuff. If they want poor people to have more money then increase minimum wages to a living wage standard and stop subsidizing employers more than willing to pay minimum wages.

System

What makes no sense is there is no consistency within the benefit system.....


Up until now parents earning wealthy sums of money could get Child Benefit.

Yet....

People like myself who are out of work get NO Job Seekers benefit because we have over £16k in savings


Why are/were some benefits a free for all yet others restricted by financial restrictions. It has got to be one way or the other!!!!


If people could get Child Benefit no matter their income then people out of work should have been getting Job Seekers Allowance no matter what their assets amount to.


Whatever way you look at the benefit system...it is unfair in so many ways.

rg00dy5

What I object to is the fact that a family with a joint income of under£100,000 will be better of than a family with a single income of £60,000 as they can continue to receive the full child benefit allowance. Why is this fair:mad: ? Who even thought this was fair, idiots. There is an E petition running by a gentleman Stephen Fisher about this unfortunately with little support. Please sign up if you agree it hasn't got long to go.

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/42069

HappyMJ

rg00dy5 wrote: »

What I object to is the fact that a family with a joint income of under£100,000 will be better of than a family with a single income of £60,000 as they can continue to receive the full child benefit allowance. Why is this fair:mad: ? Who even thought this was fair, idiots. There is an E petition running by a gentleman Stephen Fisher about this unfortunately with little support. Please sign up if you agree it hasn't got long to go.

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/42069

You mean a joint income of £50,000 is better off than a family with one earner earning £60,000.

One earner earning £60,000 takes home £800 per week.

Two earners one earning £30,000 the other earning £20,000 would take home £441 and £310...but they get to keep child benefit...assuming 4 children that's £60 a week. Totalling...£811 a week take home. Even with 3 children it's only £13 a week less at £798 a week.

emsywoo123

Thread reported.

Poor OP has had to delete his/her post.

Whoever this "gentile" is (never a less inappropriate username!) allow me to introduce you to Soapn........unless you have already met :rotfl:

FBaby

dburford9 wrote: »

What makes no sense is there is no consistency within the benefit system.....


Up until now parents earning wealthy sums of money could get Child Benefit.

Yet....

People like myself who are out of work get NO Job Seekers benefit because we have over £16k in savings


Why are/were some benefits a free for all yet others restricted by financial restrictions. It has got to be one way or the other!!!!


If people could get Child Benefit no matter their income then people out of work should have been getting Job Seekers Allowance no matter what their assets amount to.


Whatever way you look at the benefit system...it is unfair in so many ways.

Well to start with, you are entitled to JSA for 6 months regardless of your savings, that is of course if you have already contributed enough ni. However, how you can compare entitlement for a family who is contributing nothing back with a family already paying much in taxes, I don't understand. In one case it is giving much taking back a little, in the other it is taking a lot and giving nothing. I think it does make a lot of sense to me.

rogerblack

HappyMJ wrote: »

Earning £60,000 and taking home £800 a week is hardly top earning.

It pretty much is.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/statistics/personal-incomes/tables3-1_3-10.pdf

Page 31.
95% of people have a total income lower than 62500 pounds.

I'm quite comfortable with calling earnings only exceeded by perhaps 7% of people 'top earning'.

his_wife

Here is something else to consider,,,, two people in same family can earn 49,000 in same household, cb will not be affected,,,,,yet one person can earn over 50,000 and it will ... Hardly fair!!

Another point, high earners earning over 40,000 already pay 40 per cent tax, has any one in power already taken that into account,,,, so in reality they are loosing twice over!

Third of all, how many high earners, are already keeping a previous family,,, or have high mortgages to go with their high incomes.

Those on benefits, add up their rent, ct, free inners etc, prescription fees etc,,,, they wont be much difference in incomes, apart from fact, high earners are paying their taxes for that!!!

HappyMJ

rogerblack wrote: »

It pretty much is.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/statistics/personal-incomes/tables3-1_3-10.pdf

Page 31.
95% of people have a total income lower than 62500 pounds.

I'm quite comfortable with calling earnings only exceeded by perhaps 7% of people 'top earning'.

Individual income...yes....family income no it's not high.

A family with 4 children not working at all and £300 a week housing benefit (London as that is a fairly easy place to earn £60,000 and it's the same rate as a mortgage based on £60,000 of earnings) would get £37,300 in benefits including child tax credits and child benefit and an income based benefit such as income based jobseekers allowance and housing and council tax benefit (assuming £1,500 a year). Assuming again about £2,600 a year in non cash benefits such as free school meals, free prescriptions, an annual rebate on gas/electric and water bills means they are earning about the same as somone taking home £39,900...

Compare that to the working family with the main and only earner earning £60,000 and taking home £41,600 a year....and they have to pay to get to/from work which I'm sure would cost more than £1,700 per year more than sitting at home and watching telly.

It pays to stay at home and not work.

If you call them high then I call any family on benefits also high earning as well so therefore pretty much anyone with children is high earning even if they don't work at all.