Tories scrapping child benefit for people who earn over £44,000

[the_bloke]

Hands up if you know of someone earning £44k a year who is going to be unable to buy shoes for their children with the loss of the child benefit payments.

[medusa]

Threads merged. Please do a search before starting a new thread.

[Nicole_Marie]

I believe this is fair, because for an example my dad is the sole income earner and my mum stays at home with my autistic brother, so my mum deserves the child benefits, but my dad brings home around around 40k a year. He loses out on time with my brother but to put my brother in a special nursery it would cost £1000's of pounds a month. But because of this my mum can be with my brother whenever he needs it but they don't live a fully lavish lifestyle just a comfortable one!

If it is not an household limit then we are fine, because I am sure most families have a dual income. I believe this is correct as if one person is eligible for 40% tax cuts as they earn higher they are NOT eligible for Child Benefits, they are earning enough to support their family without the help of the state.

Hard to explain but I do feel this is right action... in other words people who earn more are entitled to less from the government... it won't effect the low earners just the people that earn more and get more from the state.

100% correct torries... thanks for some common sense x

[Rupert_Baehr]

So what do we think of the latest proposals?

 

How can it be right that a couple earning £40,000 a piece can still get the benefit, yet a household with one earner on £45,00 can't?????. How can that be fair?

 

...

 

By the same reasoning, how can it be right that a couple earning £40,000 apiece don't pay higher rate tax yet a household with one earner on £45,000 does?

 

Are you advocating tax allowances for households as opposed to individual earners? In that case, would a household comprising 4 adults (2 parents and 19 year old twins living at home) all working, share one tax allowance between the lot of them? - I don't suppose that would be very popular.

 

IMO, cutting child benefit for high-rate tax payers is a move in the right direction. Should the country really be paying benefits to people who don't really need them? - If you're going to pay the benefit to everybody, why not simply let everybody keep more of what they earn in the first place?

 

The amount saved by scrapping child benefit for high-rate taxpayers isn't huge. This particular cutback is means-tested. It applies to any household where any wage-earner pays tax at the higher rate. Those households are fairly easy to identify - the taxman already knows who they are - so the 'means testing' isn't going to cost very much. It's not a perfect system, but the savings aren't going to be wasted paying for additional means testing.

[Suffragette1]

I agree with you Conrod.

 

I don't think it should be paid at all then there can be no disparity and it would save a massive amount of money.

 

Same with EMA (Educational Maintenance Allowance). What a joke that is.

 

£30.00 and bonuses for going to college. All that does is reward people for being perpetual school kids who want to evade employment.

 

Undoubtedly, there are genuine kids who want to better themselves through education, but there is also a huge amount who have absolutely no interest in education and just attend for the cash, the easy life and the fact it's like still being at school.

 

I wonder how many kids would actually attend college if it was withdrawn?

 

We seem to have become a nation that stands with it's hand permanently out waiting for donations for doing nothing.

 

The EMA is means tested. What are 'kids' supposed to do? Go into non-existent jobs at 16? Anyway, when does the compulsory Post-16 education kick in? They'll have to stay on then.

[Paul2412]

Hands up if you know of someone earning £44k a year who is going to be unable to buy shoes for their children with the loss of the child benefit payments.

 

I wonder how many mothers use their child benefits to get bladdered in Embrace at the weekend?

[the_bloke]

I wonder how many mothers use their child benefits to get bladdered in Embrace at the weekend?

 

That doesn't answer my question.

[Boblet]

It's a systems-and-resources issue.

 

It's easier/faster/cheaper for the Gvt to ID and single-out those on the higher tax rate (simple question: does Mr X or Mrs Y pay @ the 40% bracket? Inland Revenue database has the answer), than to collate and analyse the earnings of every worker in the country (Mr X and Mrs X, each on less than the £44k threshold, but with a combined income over £44k), to determine whether a household gets CB or not. Cameron said about as much on TV this morning (for those who can read between the lines and understand political double-talk).

 

 

He said a similar (and less clear) thing on the radio interview I heard this morning

 

I suppose one thing you can say in his favour is that he doesn't seem to mind alienating his supporters - long may he continue

[crookesey]

I find what some people think is a normal wage quite shocking. The wife and I earned good money when we didn't need it, so saved/invested it for when we did need it, however we have revised out estimate of 'good money'.

 

We know a couple who prior to retirement were on circa £100K joint income and considered themselves as average. They ran very old cars, went camping for two weeks and bought everything on credit. We were on far less, had a nicer house, better cars, frequent luxury holidays and no debts other than a small mortgage.

 

Child benefit is not an issue for us, but we did think that circa £28K net joint retirement income with no debts was not bad. After reading this thread we wondered if we might be elligible for any poverty payments.

[Boblet]

And that's why it will be reviewed before it becomes policy.

 

But of course that doesn't sell papers or outrage the public.

 

or get you publicity at your party's conference