Ian Duncan Smith condemns tax credits as 'not fit for purpose'!

[L00b]

I was only talking about means testing a household benefit (CB), not making income tax a household tax.

Considering the extent of the developments required for (reliably) assessing household income, limiting their purpose to means-test a household benefit would make them a rather large sledgehammer for a rather small peanut, don't you think?

 

Income tax is still income tax, whether levied on an individual at the source or on a household of individual(s) periodically.

[Cyclone]

The means testing of CB against single incomes is going to be self reported, so doing the same against household income would only require a nominal change.

The level of fraud is IMO unlikely to be high if the threshold is households earning >100k as families earning that much are unlikely to take even a small risk of being prosecuted for fraud for what to them will be a trivial source of income.

[ricgem2002]

The means testing of CB against single incomes is going to be self reported, so doing the same against household income would only require a nominal change.

The level of fraud is IMO unlikely to be high if the threshold is households earning >100k as families earning that much are unlikely to take even a small risk of being prosecuted for fraud for what to them will be a trivial source of income.

havent you looked at mps :hihi:

[Cyclone]

True, but I suspect that the average 2 parent family is more moral and less likely to take the risk than the average MP (and the MPs had been doing it for so long they though they'd always get away with it).