Can I just check – are people still confused by the idea that this is anything other than a money saving measure? You do understand that any more complex means testing regime to catch more people wouldn’t save more money?
making it more complex? you mean by adding up what both people in the home earn not just taking the high earner
its a ridiculously poorly thought out bit of legislation that takes benefits away from single earner families on 45k
Kimbers – to do that would me an entire new assessment – different to any tax assessment and to the tax credits so it would be very expensive. Making the threshold higher rate tax band makes it very easy and cheap to do
any threshold will produce anomalies – the only way to avoid them is to use a taper – and that is very complex and expensive to administer
doing it this way has the advantage of simplicity and cheapness.
DO you get tax credits, kimbers? Have you experienced all the forms you have to fill, and the fact the people in charge never seem to be able to keep up with any changes in income even when you tell them well in advance? That you still seem to end up either under or overpaid at the end of the year? That’s not even considering all the people who might not be totally honest about informing them when income changes (given how they struggle when you give them all the info, I do wonder how many of the dishonest get away with it).
BTW if we’re going to do proper means testing, can we also take into account the nursery fees those unfortunate single income households don’t have to pay? Ours are only in 2.5 days a week in an inexpensive area, but CB nowhere near covers that. Not that it would make any difference to us – even without doing that our combined taxable income for 7.5 days working is <£44k (yet somehow we seem to survive OK).
Well it is one form and it is a few pages long. Odddly it is from the tax ofiice asking you what you earned last year and asking for proof of this such as a P 60 given to you by the erm tax office.
It is not some 20 page complex form beyond the wit of man. Mine took about 20 mins to fill out.
Granted the admin is rubbish …really rubbish
nope my first one is due in a couple of weeeks and fwiw we earn enough that i dont think we do need the benefit
im also surprised that the excuse for not being able to administer the changes fairly is ‘sorry our system is just too crap’
and as for childcare having looked into that if we have a a2nd child it will no longer be financially viable for me to go to work, wtf is taht all about- surely will not help the economy
Well it is one form and it is a few pages long. Odddly it is from the tax ofiice asking you what you earned last year and asking for proof of this such as a P 60 given to you by the erm tax office.
It is not some 20 page complex form beyond the wit of man. Mine took about 20 mins to fill out.
Granted the admin is rubbish …really rubbish
