Osborne axes child benefit for higher rate taxpayers

great idea....why wait until 2013?

http://nbyslog.blogspot.com/2010/10/zirpvindication-for-slog-obsessionfrom.html

Is this proposal really as simple and as workable as it sounds? Given the current economic situation, is it not highly possible that quite a few current recipients of this benefit with current incomes greater than the £44,000 threshold may well see their incomes fall below that threshold over time and hence move from recipient to non recipient and back to recipient? A fortunate few with current incomes below £44,000 may well move from recipient to non recipient as their incomes grow with inflation. All this will require a brand new bureaucracy to administer the system and provide yet another opportunity for fraudsters and another system subject to mistakes costing millions of pounds.

why wait until 2013?... do it now!! people earning more than £30k shouldnt get any benefits!!..

Those who are 'on the cusp' of paying the higher rate tax are those affected most.

Having been there myself, with 3 children, this would have made a substantial effect on my net income, at a time when money was very tight (with high mortgage rates and savings run down).

It is OK for ****s like Osbourne to come out with these ideas, since they have never been in that situation. Thankfully, l am well past that stage of life, but my three children are each paying higher rate tax

Seems like another reason NOT to get married if the husband pays tax at the higher rate. ....

l wonder if Osbourne will take similar steps with the winter fuel allowance? Since l pay higher rate tax on my pensions/savings income, l would not object at all to that move.

This should be applied in 2011 and it should apply where the joint income is £44,000.

Kind of agree with this policy, and I am a HRT. However, I think the way they are measuring who doesn't get it is flawed. If both my wife and I earned £40,000 each we would still get it, thats £80,000 joint income, and neither of us paying HRT. However, if my wife didn't work, and I earned £80,000, we would not get it, and yet our household income is a lot less as I would be paying HRT on anything about £44k. Seems odd to me.

Great idea in principle, but I suspect it will be tricky to administer. If (as I heard Osborne say this morning) you can still claim CB but get it clawed back through the tax system, how will the case of 2 HRT payers in one household be handled? Will they both have CB claimed back or just one? And if so which one - and who will decide?

Everything about the tax system currently treats everyone as individuals - this proposal requires an understanding of households. I really hope all this has been thought through before being announced.

The Child Benefit System is flawed and should be reviewed. I agree that higher earners have the luxury of investing the benefit for future educational needs (thats another issue that needs reviewing !!), however, if parents are unable to afford to support the number of children they produce, then why should the state have to deal with that problem ?

Perhaps if the benefit were scrapped then more people might seek more gainful employment to support their families ?

Sooner the better, there is however much bigger fish to fry. When will he do something about the gold plated pensions he and the rest of the crooks enjoy. This is the area of real savings. If they were on the same scheme as a lot of people in the private sector our debt would disappear within in a year.

How about it George, then we will know you mean business?

How to make the tax system, with its 1,000-plus pages of rules, more of a dog's breakfast in one easy gesture. Thanks, Boy George.

That said, plenty of bankster daddies and yummy mummys down my way look on Child Benefit as a way to pay for an extra skiing holiday. Lord Beveridge WOULD be glad.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Usual Tory nonsense. As it’s called a 'benefit' it should go or be reduced. So those who pay the most into the state get less back. We can't have all these swine sponging off the state can we. Why stop here, look at all the other benefits these disgusting people get. Just because they pay for everything some of them seem to think they should get some return, selfish idiots.

Last time the Tories were in they said all the same things, Quangos, immigration, benefits (except for HRT folk) all increased, Crime, NHS, education all got worse etc.

We have moved on a long way from the original reason this 'right' was introduced so I don’t have a problem with Turkeys voting for Christmas.

Bit like supporting their tough stand on Europe. A Tory takes us in, and Mrs T signs up for greater European powers, and the first thing this lot do is sign up for less independence for the City.

Or immigration, Mrs T forced the expansion despite French and German concerns about immigration, but of course she knew better.

Maybe the 'Big Society' idea will work, we end up doing every thing ourselves for no pay? Danger is some people might start to wonder why we pay tax or, even worse, why do we need politicians at all.

P.S. Exactly right Stephen, but you have made the mistake of consulting your brain before opening your mouth.

Could not agree more with you fredr - those gold plated civil service pensions must go too . But I doubt George O has the stomach to take on the Civil Service unions .

The advantage of a universal benefit is that it avoids a high rate of marginal tax as the benefit is withdrawn.. Those on just above the threshold of £44,000 will face a huge incremental tax rate.

Also, it seems hugely unfair that a household with two salaries both just under the threshold gets the benefit whilst another with one salary just over the threshold (on about half the family income of the two workers) loses the benefit.

Furthermore, we are once again linking the tax/income affairs of two people. Does this apply if the parents are not married? Genenally, the benefit going to a non-working wife would have to be checked back against the husband's (or partner's) salary. How much extra is it going to cost to administer and police this?

I am against this because...

1. It introduces a huge new marginal tax rate

2. It is unfair on single income families

3. It introduces further complexity into the tax system

The problem appears to be that George Osborne is simply not intellectually up to the job.

No problem with this., except any change here needs also to be fair.

There needs to be a limit on the number of children per family supported by state benefits.

£45000 after tax Ni etc is no fortune and it will impact such family's finances.

If they say limit their family size to two children why should their taxes provide support for larger families at lower income levels.

For those entitled under the new rules : child benefit for the first child ok second child at areduced rate as at present a very dubious maybe. For a third child - that is just taking the p***.

Chop the benefit off for all children at age 16- they atre old enough then to get a part time job and contribute.

As usual politicians with no gumption to take the difficult decisions.

benefits should only be given by the state to people who are struggling to cope. like housing benefit to help people on low incomes afford their social rented house, child benefit should be for low income families to help feed their children. a suitable cut off should be agreed and implemented asap. not 2013.

Middle class people should not be in receipt on any state benefits.

Bottom line should be if you cant afford kids get the snip! there are too many people sponging off the welfare state.. About time George I say... get it cut and get the slobs working for a living too!!

Well said Niall Beattie I totally agree with you. Let's remove all the perks in the system for the middle classes. The Government needs to get rid of a range of tax reliefs such as on pension contributions, the annual ISA allowances, the preferential tax treatment of holiday letting (on the cards), offsetting mortgage interest on buy to let, VAT exemption on books and magazines, tax pension lump sums, remove the charitable status of public schools and put VAT on the fees as well. We should also means test the basic State Pension. I'm sure there are loads more. In total it must come to £billions.

I have never understood why anyone should get money for having children. Scrap the whole thing. Why should people without children pay tax towards people who choose to have them? Pay for your own children or don't have them at all.

Lone Ranger - good idea. We could take it even further and sterilise the population. We would save on the cost of maternity services and education allowing us to keep even more of our hard earned money.

Since child benefit is made up of mainly the old tax allowance for children which was added to the old ten bob children's allowance, this is just taking away a tax allowance. What the Conservative's in opposition used to call a stealth tax, but now call fairness.

Says a lot about politicians.

It is flawed, it should be thought out again. A limit has to be imposed and must take total family income into consideration.

This really ticks me off, stop the benefit by all means but apply it to household incomes. It now turns out that Boy Blunder will get £2.5 billion from this measure, £1.5 billion more than he anticipated. In the meantime the papers are saying that implementing the change will be impossible through the tax system and people will have to declare their income or risk being fined. Sounds just like means testing to me which is what you have to do for Child tax credit, so why is it so difficult to implement fairly?

And the other thing that gets my goat is that I know several self employed people who live considerably more extravagantly than me but for tax purposes their accountants keep them below the HRT threshold. It is common practice among tradesmen to work weekends cash in hand is it fair? Is it f*^%$