The Summer Budget

I did a rough budget for a young family of 4 on the minimum wage but can't remember where. Our little family will. now be about £274pa worse off so hard times indeed for them and millions of others on the minimum/living wage. Compare that to someone like my son and wife both working like our young couple but my son is childless and earning approx £70 K between them. They will be about £400+ better off. Nothing fair about that. My daughter married with 2 children hasn,t worked out their loss/gain yet (no time!!!) but as she is on a decent salary as is her husband will no doubt be a gainer.

I'm very sorry to hear that downtoearth.

Married couple with two children , both working , will gain £250 a year if their joint salary is over £35,000, according to the i.

Whitewave is taking into account the tax threshold rising by £400 to £11,000?

I noticed that, downtoearth. The government encourages the unemployed to take on self employment, but punishes them for it, losing over £100 per month if they have profits of less than £15,000.
Completely wrong.

www.politics.co.uk/news/2015/07/09/poorest-will-be-hit-hardest-over-next-four-years

The IFS doesn't agree with Osborne.

Sorry Whitewave that should read

'Is that taking into account the tax threshold rising bt £400 to £11,000?'

Changes in non-dom status and cutting tax relief for buy to let landlords were also in the Labour manifesto, but not in the Tory one.

Anyone else notice the idea of creating three million new apprentices over the course of this parliament?
The actual workforce is 30 million, so one tenth of the workforce is going to be in apprenticeships. Be interesting to see how that pans out.

Here's an interesting point :

"From April 2016 the income threshold to claim Working Tax Credit will go down from £6,420 to £3,850 at the same time as the minimum wage rises to £7.20.
To claim you must work at least 16 hours per week.
16 hours at £7.20 pays £5990.40 per year.
That's £2140 over the threshold to qualify for tax credits at all.
No one will ever qualify for this benefit after April 2016!

Osborne has totally abolished Working Tax Credits and no one has even noticed. "

anya are you talking about our fictitious family or my son?

No, that's wrong FarNorth.

It means that anyone earning more than £3,850 will have their income reduced more steeply, not that they won't receive any Working Tax Credits at all.

From Paul Johnson of the IFS on The World at One today: "The reduction of the work allowance will also have a huge effect, he said, meaning cuts will be bigger for those with a job, reducing incentives for people to move into work."

Surely that is not what they intended?

Anyone else noticed this?

"The government has been challenged to justify an “incredibly distasteful” proposal in Wednesday’s budget which would require a woman who had a third child as the result of rape to justify her position in order to avoid losing tax credits.

The plans to restrict child tax credits to two children for new claimants from 2017 incorporate a number of exemptions, including multiple births, and set out that “the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC will develop protections for women who have a third child as a result of rape or other exceptional circumstances”."

Even those who think tax credits for two children is enough must think this is beyond the pale.

Firstly the two-child limit only affects new claimants, right?

But there might be a time when someone, gives birth to a third child, for which tax credits can still be claimed, right?

This might be when, for example, a set of twins is born to a mother who already has a child, right?

Or it mighf be that a woman who already has two children, becomes pregnant through rape, but keeps the child, right?

Do I have that correct then?

so why is it 'beyond the pale' , someone please explain.

It is beyond the pale because the thrust of the budget is so Malthusian. Even the Victorians understood the paucity of such an ideology and it was finally rejected at the beginning of the last century. This is in the words of the Home Secretary a nasty government.

Malthus was concerned about the increase in population without the corresponding increase in resources

we now have birth control and abortion more or less on demand

couples/individuals can choose the size of their family

no-one is preventing anyone having 16 children if they wish but the child tax credits (i.e. benefits) will not be paid for children 3-16

this does not remove anything from children already here (or due to arrive in the next 18 months or so)

but don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

The message from the government to the poor is certainly Malthusian in its thrust. This government has constantly banged on about the lack of resources and the undeserving poor who lay in bed. Now they are suggesting that if a poor family choose to have more than 2 children this will not be supported.

G1 Your immoderate language in the last sentence does nothing to progress a debate on the subject.

I'm afraid it is always the case that hard cases make bad laws and I really do not think that you can change the law to, say, give benefits for three children in case a few, and it would be very few, women have a third because of rape. You would then have to repeat the argument for a women who has a forth child in the case of rape and eventually you would be saying that benefits should apply to the parents for every child. We would then be back where we started.

Personally, I do not agree with supporting parents for every child they have. More than anything I take this view because I do not believe it is good for mothers. However, I do agree with supporting every child. I hope (although I am not holding my breath with a Conservative government) that we see much more free wrap around support for childen, before and after school, free breakfast, lunch and evening meal, homework clubs, etc., etc. and most of all the best education we can provide.

Do people deliberately have children to claim tax credits/child benefit? I very much doubt this but even if they do why should the children of such a family be punished?

As I have mentioned before, in the UK the number of children in a family has been steadily falling and apparently the average is now 1.7. I think the figure is that only 14% of people have families of three children or more and large families dependent on out-of-work benefits are very unusual.

Yes I think support for the children should be paramount.

Statistically large families are likely to be either very poor or very rich.

If we find the birth rate is a problem we could increase the number to three. However, the issue is not that everyone is only having two children, many people are having only one or none. If this is the case it may be better to improve the help, as I suggested, so all families could consider two. Those who don't are often trying to do their best for one.

I still believe, even if we have to moderate the number a little, that the support should, in the long run, be spent directly on the children.

All families have to think before they have more than two children ( we did, ourselves) but sometimes accidents happen in spite of contraception.If this is the case, then the families have to manage as best they can, they will still be supported for the first two children.Children already here are still provided for and next year as well.Women will have to take control of their own lives and bodies and stop producing babies if they can't afford to have more.

This bit seems to have been missed, that a victim of rape will have to justify herself to the taxman to be able to claim for the child.

"SNP MP Roger Mullin urged the Chancellor not to force rape victims to justify themselves to the tax man. Adding that victims of rape should be given “decent treatment” within the benefits system.

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the budget was highly moral, a comment which “stunned” and infuriated Mr Mullin.

Mr Mullin replied: “It reminded me that today is the 131st anniversary to the day of the formation of the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children – on the very day that this Government brings in a Budget that attacks children, tax credits for children.”

He added: “What on earth is moral about dragging women to have to talk about the fact that they may have been raped to get some decent treatment out of benefits in this society? What can possibly be moral about that?

“I would appeal to the Government to, for goodness sake, you may seek savings in many other parts of welfare but don’t punish children and don’t force women who have gone through the trauma of rape to have to justify themselves to the taxman.” "

I can't find any reference to a rape victim 'having to justify herself to the taxman' in the relevant part of the budget.

A Treasury spokesperson said: “As part of the reforms to the welfare system set out in the Budget, we are absolutely clear there needs to be adequate protection for victims of rape and other exceptional circumstances. The details of these protections will be set out in due course.”