[Closed] Child benefit cuts

Can someone fill me in on the missing details, thanks

You haven't added the tax free allowance. This is what takes it up to £44k.

Zedsdead - those figures are plus your *personal* allowance.

which for most people is £6475.

Cue discussion about getting rid of lumbersome child tax credits regime and instead changing your personal allowance (which could result in low earners getting a negative tax bill in every pay packet - eg, gross wage £120, deductions (income tax) minus £25 take home £145 )

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?

I'd be better off trying to negotiate a 4 day week

sorry, quite simply, anyone on 44 k per year is comparatively well off,

Someone on 44k [i]should[/i] be comparatively well off - but if they've bought a house in the last (say) 10 years the picture isn't that simple - as has been posted above...

With the "average" UK house price at something like 166k (189k in 2007), that is still well over the oft quoted 3.5x multiplier for the tax threshold earner. And the "live somewhere cheaper" argument only goes so far - property is notoriously more expensive where the jobs are, and cheaper where the jobs aren't...

I'm not arguing against the cut, just the apparent lack of fairness in the application of it. Maybe keep the universal principle and scrap CB altogether - then adjust income tax rates accordingly.

Stopping the "career benefit culture" at the bottom end needs to be better addressed.

As per my first post - the cap still equates to a mid 30s salary 🙄

[i] aracer - Member

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? [/i]

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

but not from families on a joint income of 80k

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! okay, I see.

Thankyou.

Every day is a learning day... 🙂

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.

why would it have to be different from the tax credits assessment?
surely that takes into account both salaries

im not trolling

just dont see how it can be that complicated income of earner a+ earner b?

yesterday osborne himself admitted that 900000 families lie in the unknown zone

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).

all the forms you have to fill

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

childcare should be free, right?

all the forms you have to fill

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

Just do it over the phone, much easier

TBH - I think there'll be too many people caught in this single earner over £45K rule & they'll change it to ease things for them

By 2013 it'll be irrelevant to me anyway

kimbers - Member

why would it have to be different from the tax credits assessment?
surely that takes into account both salaries

Because tax credits taper and that its a a totally different salery level

I think there'll be too many people caught in this single earner over £45K rule & they'll change it to ease things for them

Well you wouldn't want to make things tough for all those [strike]people[/strike] Tory voters struggling on the breadline like that.

there ............ changed it for you

Oh dear. I think it might be past someone's bedtime... 🙄