Coalition government to cut child benefit for the wealthy

[Incontinenta Buttox]

The recent announcement that the Coalition government plan to stop paying child benefit to the well-off. Anyone earning over £44,000 per year. Has been greeted with loud squeals of outrage from the media. especially the left-wing Guardian newspaper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...t-war-families

Now this left me somewhat confused. As the left always like to bang on about how the rich should pay more. So while the spectacle of the left twisting themselves in knots trying to justify the poor subsidising luxuries for the wealthy through child-benefit payments funded through general taxatio, mostly paid by the less well-off has been a joy to behold. But I had to wonder at the outrageous, breathtaking hypocrisy of it. The sheer brass neck!

Of course the fact that virtually everyone who writes for the Guardian and the dead-tree press in general get paid well over 44k per year, so are themselves going to lose out from this policy explains a lot.

So with Christmas fast approaching, spare a thought for those more fortunate than yourselves.

This year, there will be no flights for Polly Toynbee & co down to their Tuscany villas. No more lunches at the Groucho Club with Alistair Campbell. No more champagne launch parties at the Tate Modern. No more tax-payer funded winter breaks to Gstaad.

Perhaps most heart-breaking of all, no more cello lessons for little Adagio, Poppy, Tarquin and Intelligentsia.

But you can heal their pain. You can bring some light into the darkness of depleted wine cellars. Donate now to make metroplitan upper-middle class poverty history.

http://www.justgiving.com/josephharker

You can bring i-phones to Islington, Nikes to Notting Hill, Hessian yoga mats to Hampstead. But most of all, You can put a smile back on the faces of greedy, sanctomonious , relf-regarding, hypocrites struggling to get by on several thousand pounds per week.

[justicar5]

It is amusing.

[Vagn]

It doesn't make sense, a family with parents who earn £40 000 each per year would still get child benefit, yet if only one person works and earns £45 000 then they don't get it. Clearly the second family is less well off, but will get less money, surely the system should be based on household income not the income of an individual? Well and truely bizarre...

[Phier]

Sort of ironic when these days its the rich people you should be encouraging to breed

[Poach]

What I fail to understand is why the means test is income per person, not family income. A single parent on 45k a year gets no benefit, but a family with both parents on 43k a year (eg, 86k in total) still gets the benefit because neither earn over 44k. It's stupidity, and it's been highlighted by the media repeatedly, yet it hasn't been changed. Seems rather stupid to me.

[Incontinenta Buttox]

What I fail to understand is why the means test is income per person, not family income. A single parent on 45k a year gets no benefit, but a family with both parents on 43k a year (eg, 86k in total) still gets the benefit because neither earn over 44k. It's stupidity, and it's been highlighted by the media repeatedly, yet it hasn't been changed. Seems rather stupid to me.

This is indeed odd, and the one big balls up in an otherwise sensible policy.

[Phier]

Progressive taxing is always stupid and unfair, the issue is setting the number high enough that more voters are below the arbitrary and stupid unfair point than above it.

[Musthavename]

What I fail to understand is why the means test is income per person, not family income. A single parent on 45k a year gets no benefit, but a family with both parents on 43k a year (eg, 86k in total) still gets the benefit because neither earn over 44k. It's stupidity, and it's been highlighted by the media repeatedly, yet it hasn't been changed. Seems rather stupid to me.

This is my only issue with the plans.

Given that they're not even bringing it in until 2013 I don't see why they can't figure out a way of organising the bureacracy to make it work that way. I'd also rather have a tier inbetween, as it seems daft you go from getting everything to getting nothing. Maybe how someone on £20-43 or so only gets to claim on one child?

[Exarch]

i grew up believing that being on welfare was something only poor ppl who couldnt help themselves had to resort to, and ultimately was a source of shame.

why anyone who's doing ok financially would want to advertise that they're on welfare is...not surprising actually

[Svaline]

They pay just as much (well more really) taxes as everyone else, no reason for their children in particular to get short handed.

[removeduser_487563287433]

It's... a symbolic thing. The coalition has to do it. Obviously anybody on 44k doesn't need child benefit. We've got to get back to the idea where benefits are for survival, not stocking the wine rack.

However... we've yet to see the coalition to take a stance on the real problem with our revenue streams: tax avoidance and evasion.

[Dr. Croccer]

The rich being economically harmed is going to be the least of the issues at this will cause. The Middle Class are going to be the real victims of this. Like Poach said, single parents or families with single moneymakers are going to be affected the worse. This may also cause reverse social mobility for middle class families, as they have no incentive to become richer, as they will only lose money. It's an incredibly stupid decision by the Tories as their constituency will be hit the worst by this for little actually money saved.

[removeduser_487563287433]

lol middle class families will have no incentive to become richer because of losing child benefits?

You realise you just claimed people won't become richer if they won't become richer?

[Dr. Croccer]

lol middle class families will have no incentive to become richer because of losing child benefits?

You realise you just claimed people won't become richer if they won't become richer?

If one income owner in a family of 3 children hits the 44.000 pound mark the entire family'll have to lose over 2.000 pounds annually. It's a stupid thing to say: ''Above this arbitrary line you won't get any money''. It would be better to have a child benefit system that steadily decreases the amount of child benefits as income goes up.

[Incontinenta Buttox]

Cuts are inevitable. But the government are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. The behaviour of the left over this whole issue has been typically petulant and childish.

Child benefit is taken away from high earners, the weathiest in our society, and the left call the government "an enemy of the family".

Sensible reforms are introduced to ensure that people are not paid more in annual benefits than the average working person earns in a year, and the left call it "an assault on the poor".

Housing benefit is capped so that we stop paying the rent for jobless immigrants in expensive mansions in palces like Notting Hill and Kensington, and left call it "cleasing the inner cities of the poor".

How many more ivory-tower academics is the Guardian going to trot out to tell us how vil the government is for trying to clear up Gordon Browns mess? How we shouldn't be cutting? Presumably continuing to borrow so we and our children can pay it all back in some fantasy future... with interest.

When will these people grow up?

[Azog 150]

^^^That is always how things have been between Conservatives and Labour. When Labour were in power you could find Conservatives making similarly ridiculous remarks

[Mr Tom]

The issue I have with this is the fact that a family can get earning about £80k and still keep the benefit because they don't have an earner above the 44k limit.

Cameron said they can't impose that because its too bureaucratic & complex but to be honest I think that means testing would be a cheaper solution than giving out the money to high income families.

[Incontinenta Buttox]

The issue I have with this is the fact that a family can get earning about £80k and still keep the benefit because they don't have an earner above the 44k limit.

Cameron said they can't impose that because its too bureaucratic & complex but to be honest I think that means testing would be a cheaper solution than giving out the money to high income families.

Wouldn't such a family be incurring childcare costs, if both parents are working?

[Vizsla]

To make it fair they’d have to do means testing of household income. This would mean an increase in paperwork and bureaucracy which is exactly what they are trying to save money on.
They wanted something for people to about during the Conference. A bunch of ‘Tory Scum’ patting each other on the back wouldn’t get into certain newspapers.
The whole idea of rich people complaining because money’s been taken off them plays well with the core vote that didn’t turn out for Labour.
Classic case of political land grab.
There is no leftist line of attack that doesn’t further alienate Labour from its core.
It seems like an open goal but it’s actually very dangerous ground.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Um, really, how many families do you think exist that would fit that? It's too much detail, and we're not talking about a huge amount of money.