Tax credit calculators for new budget 2016/17

bloolagoon

beecher2 wrote: »

Unfortunately there is a very strong feeling of entitlement out there, and I don't know how you really break that. 'I want it so I should have it' - perhaps because there's more to have than there was when I was growing up! I still see a holiday and car as luxuries, but most don't any more. It is inconceivable to me that someone on a low wage would expect to run a car and go abroad, but it is inconceivable to them that they should do without.

I'm younger than you I suspect but I don't see anything wrong with a holiday or a car or both. We all need some family time and overseas can cost the same as the UK and many need a car to get to work. So personally I don't have an issue with either. Unless of course it's a stupidly expensive holiday or car.

I think for me it's the issue that people claim poverty then have them.

beecher2

bloolagoon wrote: »

I'm younger than you I suspect but I don't see anything wrong with a holiday or a car or both. We all need some family time and overseas can cost the same as the UK and many need a car to get to work. So personally I don't have an issue with either. Unless of course it's a stupidly expensive holiday or car.

I think for me it's the issue that people claim poverty then have them.

Maybe 'luxury' is a strong word for what I mean but I mean something which can only be justified if you can afford it without getting into debt. Oh dear, I'm very old fashioned. :

Cathy321

I can understand what everyone is saying.

Working to me means that you should be able to have food, a house, a car (if needed) and a holiday (Sun newspaper holiday if necessary - just a break).

These days it seems as though the unemployed/on benefits have more money. Its only in the last year and a half I have stopped working full time. To do a course which I hoped would give me better job opportunities. My husband and I have both worked since leaving school full time and taken any job when needed (ie redundancies)

My oldest boy is disabled. severely autistic so I am trying to find a job which would fit in with him.

We are still unable to buy a house, even after paying rent on time for the last 10 years (for £500.00 a month - twice more than a mortgage would be), Applying a couple of times in the last few years but still have been unable to buy a house (security needed for the children, especially the eldest),and been unable to meet criteria for social housing. Apparently as we had a car (paid by mobility, although not through mobility) and 2 children, we didnt meet the criteria for affordability. !!!!!!?

The government needs to support people like us. We want to work,We would be so ashamed if we didnt and our parents horrified! Any job is better than no job! All we want is a future and life for us and our children. ?How do the people on benefits live better than us and then still get to buy a house?? Why are we being penalised?

Tax credits to us is just to allow me to work part time as I cant get care for my eldest boy. Easy enough for the second.. My eldest is non verbal so even if I could get care at an affordable rate...what if there was a problem? He wouldnt be able to tell us..That is so scary..

nannytone_2

Cathy321 wrote: »

I can understand what everyone is saying.

Working to me means that you should be able to have food, a house, a car (if needed) and a holiday (Sun newspaper holiday if necessary - just a break).

These days it seems as though the unemployed/on benefits have more money. Its only in the last year and a half I have stopped working full time. To do a course which I hoped would give me better job opportunities. My husband and I have both worked since leaving school full time and taken any job when needed (ie redundancies)

My oldest boy is disabled. severely autistic so I am trying to find a job which would fit in with him.

We are still unable to buy a house, even after paying rent on time for the last 10 years (for £500.00 a month - twice more than a mortgage would be), Applying a couple of times in the last few years but still have been unable to buy a house (security needed for the children, especially the eldest),and been unable to meet criteria for social housing. Apparently as we had a car (paid by mobility, although not through mobility) and 2 children, we didnt meet the criteria for affordability. !!!!!!?

The government needs to support people like us. We want to work,We would be so ashamed if we didnt and our parents horrified! Any job is better than no job! All we want is a future and life for us and our children. ?How do the people on benefits live better than us and then still get to buy a house?? Why are we being penalised?

Tax credits to us is just to allow me to work part time as I cant get care for my eldest boy. Easy enough for the second.. My eldest is non verbal so even if I could get care at an affordable rate...what if there was a problem? He wouldnt be able to tell us..That is so scary..

you are definitely stuck ( as was i as a single parent in the 90's) but you can't believe that the answer is to throw benefits at people?
all tax credits have really achieved is a generation that is benefit dependant and employers that think it is oj to pay low wages in the knowledge that 'the system' will pick up the slack.
unfortunately it will take a few years of hardship yo bring the system back into line.
hard for the people that lose out, but better in the long term

merlin68

Nobody on benefits buys a house. They would have bought a house before they were.

roje

No one seems to factor in the children, it's all about adults fighting between themselves about who deserves what. Envy.

No one is 'entitled' to a car or a holiday, that much is true.

However, if you are a child growing up in a family on a low income and you have no transport, no access to any extra-curricular activities or life experiences beyond kicking a ball up and down the street on a council estate, are your life chances the same as a middle class child who gets taken to private tutoring, guitar lessons, cubs, to museums and parks and theatres? That is before you factor in middle class children attending better schools.

The argument about higher income people not being able to afford some of the 'privileges' lower income families can is misleading. Higher income families normally own their own homes in better areas, their children go to better schools. Therefore, they pay higher housing costs than someone renting a council maisonette somewhere who may have a big TV on credit and a few iphones but really can't compete in terms of the lifestyle they are providing for their children.

I'm not suggesting that the ideal answer to this is to throw money at people and hope it changes things, it's obviously more complicated than that. Equally, it's worse still to think the best idea is to remove money from those families to teach them to stand on their own two feet a bit more. It's the children who suffer, both from the financial deprivation and the stress and hopelessness their parents suffer. No child should have their fate mapped out at birth, it shouldn't be so much harder for the 'have nots' to get on in life.

The political argument is much wider than tax credits, too. The government have drastically cut funding to children's centres, mental health care for children, social services for children. They have hit disadvantaged children from all angles. I think it's wrong to suggest that children deserve to suffer because their parents are uneducated (or even !!!!less). They don't. They deserve some sort of dignity. If the government were decreasing tax credits to filter that money back in to childrens services, into schemes to help break cycles of poverty, I'd understand more. Using it to pay off debt caused by greedy bankers...no. Poor people are the scapegoats. That doesn't sit right with me. If you don't want to throw money at those families, hire more family support workers, more job centre assistants, more teaching assistants and social workers to unpick what is happening and help those families and children help themselves out of the poverty trap. Don't just take the money and run shouting 'serves you right, peasant!' as you go. I'm very worried about what the damage will be to future generations from this ill thought out policy.

No one thinks that forcing employers to pay more to reduce benefit dependency is a bad thing, I'm yet to meet a single person who disagrees with that in theory. But that doesn't exactly help the millions who will now be struggling to live day to day. Freezing tax credits with the view to eventually taper them off as the minimum wage rises would have been more sensible. The way it stands, every single low income working family in Britain will now be significantly worse off from next April and for many families it's a loss of thousands. I agree that unemployment will probably rise. The incentive to work has been diluted by this.

nannytone_2

merlin68 wrote: »

Nobody on benefits buys a house. They would have bought a house before they were.

youre wrong.
as recently as last year there were threads about mortgages saying that lenders accept tax credits as income when calculating how large a mortgage can be afforded.
so people have been able to buy a house whilst receiving benefits

FBaby

From the way that they're designed, it looks to me as though they're intended to be a compromise between providing enough for those at the bottom of the income scale (especially families with dependent children), and maintaining income differentials to protect work incentives. Another way to describe that would be compressing the income distribution. Another way would be reducing inequality. Universal Credit is similar in its design.

I wouldn't have an issue with this in principle, if in order to claim Working Tax credits, families were required to work 40 hours like most people who don't get any tax credits need to get to enjoy the same disposable income.

The 24 hours a week is complete insult to working people. It means that families can get more in tax credits than they receive from employment, hence often leaving them with more disposable income than a family working 40 hours. That's reverse inequality.

I would really have liked to see a 35h at least requirement for families with children under the age of 5, going up to 55h for families with children from 5 to 12, and 70 hours after the youngest is 12. Then the system would indeed be a bit fairer.

FBaby

I agree that unemployment will probably rise. The incentive to work has been diluted by this.

But why not consider the other alternative, increasing working hours. I would support a system that allowed those working part-time to claim JSA meeting all the rules for looking for full-time work. There would be an incentive there and no more excuses that 'there are no full-time jobs around' so no point in actually bothering to look for one.

supersaver2

Hoping one of the wonderful posters can help with my tax credits and likely loss next year.

2 adults, one working 40 hours and one 30 hours. Income expected to be roughly £28,000. One child in nursery receiving middle rate care with nursery costs approx £70.00 per week. This years award is approx £4200.00.

Many thanks.