A poorly thought-out act.

It is the price we pay for separate assessment - as independent women, not wanting to be lumped to gether with husbands/partners for taxation purposes. When we were younger you could opt to be taxed separately or together, the former being more beneficial to higher earners. It is also much less clearcut when partners are not necessarily married, children may live with one parent but be the financial responsibility of the absent parent or both parents as well as other factors- a minefield in other words.
Universkl benefits would make it simpler but then of course people would complain about high earners receiving benefits they are perceived not to need.

It's the usual divide and conquer policy this country has grown accustomed to since Thatcher's right wingers took over Britain in the 80's, and the British are so easily divided. Particularly the up and coming middle classes who think they have left their working class roots behind.

As a married man with no children, and a tax payer all my 60 plus years of living and working in my own country, I believe in universal benefits, I dont believe in means testing Child Benefit, because its for the mum and her children, and we British have the highest divorce rates compared to Europe.

York it is gross but see my post about salary sacrifice.

I have read the regulations and this year I have had to drop out. One reason is I was paid in arrears by trustees so I went over the limit this year but next year I will be under if I want the Child Benefit I will start to have to do UK self assessments although I am already taxed in France seperately and do tax returns there. All my UK income is already taxed at source. That means I will have to do a self assessment of several pages and taking a few hours to get UK child benefit. My wife is a minimum wage earner is France. Lots of work for what will be less and less benefit one suspects. Never taken any benefits until after I retired anyway. It took years of fighting to get the winter fuel payment. Lost out by thousands on Equitable Life!

Having spent quite some time today trying to untangle a Tax Credit conundrum for CAB clients, I would like to invite George Osborne to sit a test on the regulations for same.

Is it £60,000 gross or net income?

I think it was Gove who said the other day that, "coherence comes at the end of the process".
So there you have it; make it up as you go along.

I have to agree - just as I met trainee teachers that I would not have allowed to walk my dog, I met trainee tax inspectors who were convinced that their job was to get the maximum tax, when in fact it is to get the correct tax. I had many an argument with them. I suppose this happens in all professions -I have bitter personal experience of an incompetent surgeon and a poor solicitor.
I think the fact that I had run my own business for several years and was 50 years old when I entered the Inland Revenue may have made me more sympathetic , especially to the owners of small businesses.

It might help if they recruited better in the first place. Our uncomplicated tax affairs have been beyond the understanding of the ones we have spoken to on occassions! I was once asked in the most patronising voice why I thought I was due a tax refund. He knew I was a pensioner and put on that voice they keep specially for the limited in the brain customers. I explained that I had all my P60s and a calculator and told him exactly how much they owed me! A similar experience last year when I told them my tax code was wrong, it took 4 lots of tax code notifications to get it right.

I was thinking of a drinks party in a brewery - or something like that!
Short term thinking is responsible for so many rotten decisions. They got rid of experienced tax inspectors to save money and now find they need to recruit and train 2,000 to cope with the huge back-log of investigations.

Bunch of fumbling morons. Couldn't organise their way out of paper bag.

Jess I think the composite families issue would be easy to deal with but the others scenarios would have to be dealt with in other parts of the benefit system.

Presumably those who could afford to have larger families would be in a position to insure against bereavement and to get another job if they lost the one they had. The long term unemployed do tend to be the harder to employ less qualified although of course there are exceptions to that.

There will always be losers but I think my suggestion is rather fairer than the one we have now.

I am not so sure they thought it through though! Did they really think through the issue that started this post!

I agree movedalot as a long term solution.

CB should be related to total household income - I'm sure it can't be that difficult to link two tax returns from the same house. When my DH died the £200 WFA was paid to me, whereas before it was divided between us.

I think most people agree the benefits system does need sorting out but in such a way that the people who it was designed to help do not slip the net.

YUP glass just when they want to reduce headcount... Wanna have fewer civil servants - less legislation boys, less legislation.
move I am sure they thought about this but what about the folk who can afford them and then lose their jobs? Or are widowed? And what about composite families - his two and her two makes four?

There is always some undeserving group that suffers. No easy answers I'm afraid.

IMO the long term way to reduce the cost of CB would be to only give it for the first 2 children. It would have to be phased in so that those who already have more than 2 are not put into hardship. Another way would be to freeze the amount for third and subsequent children but both of these are long term solutions and governments don't want to think beyond the next election.

I realise that my suggestion wouldn't go down with people like the Rowntree Foundation but I don't think anyone has the right to keep having children they can't afford and expect other hard up families to support them.

Should I duck?

Surely having all these extra self assessments arriving at the Inland Revenue would require extra staff to deal with them so in effect lose some of the savings made. Its typical of the Government jump in with both feet before they have looked at the whole picture.

Another George special. The trouble with tinkering with universal benefits is that it is always complex to unravel or tweak.
Same if they take away winter fuel allowance. Those who are on low incomes but not on benefits stand to lose out.
Politicians these days lack the cojones. I sometimes think of the labour government after the war that introduced a serious amount of tax on big estates and thus nabbed lots of lovely places for the NT. Now that took cojones. (And a big majority I suppose.)
Also most politicians have never run something so they latch onto something that sounds appealing and do not appear to know how to think it through in terms of how will this work in the real world with real people. (Like anyone who has ever run a tricky project in business or public administration has)
Gordon Brown and his tax credits was an example. How is that supposed to work, really, for families with fluctuating incomes?
Women who are at home will apparently lose their NI credits if they are not in receipt of child benefit (anyone know details?)

It will also require many of those receiving it to complete a self assessment tax return every year, even if they are PAYE. That will probably be enough to put many people off.

It is entirely bonkers, but it is clear why they have done this. Assessing a family income involves them in a specific family means test for everyone in receipt of Child Benefit, and this would cost so much that they would lose the financial gain that they are aiming for.

The government already has individual incomes clocked via PAYE so no separate means test is needed.

The example that greatnan cites is exactly the nonsense that everyone said would arise under this system.

(Must admit, I haven't been following it)

Have they (the government) put forward any explanation? It just seems so ridiculous.

I wrote to my MP at the time this was first mooted, presumably not enough people did too. It will be interesting to see how it goes as IMO it is unenforceable for the unmarried. Anyone earning £60k + and not married to their partner will find a way round it. In the meantime they will put the CB in a savings account until they have to pay it in over a year's time.

It is quite possible to use salary sacrifice to reduce income such as childcare vouchers, additional pension contributions etc.

I know some will say that £50k is a lot to earn but that rather depends where you live and whether you are the only earner.

Definitely not, it should be based on total household income. The way it has been done is utterly ridiculous.