slipons

Mrs T, Absolutely, i have written to my MP and told them in no uncertain terms about my future voting intentions due to this. In terms of Demo's, i am struggling to find traction mainly due to a) People don't understand the implications yet (e.g. Benefits in Kind, other income, bonuses will all be taken into account) & b) It now affects only families with a single high earner, so most two earner families just under the threshold are doing fine out of this! There are a number of e-petitions on the internet, but take-up is low due to the above. If you follow me on twitter @slipons1 hopefully we can get a number of like-minded individuals together to take action. DaveR As always, everyone is entitled to their views, but my personal one is to value universal child benefit due to the below principles; Promoting ?horizontal? equity between people of similar incomes, with and without children; Providing a contribution from society as a whole to the next generation; Giving a stable element at times of financial insecurity caused by, for example, insecure employment or family breakdown; Offering an independent income for women

The only fair way to do this is to scrap CB completely and pay it the Child Tax Credit system. The Gov't have ruled this out because they feel it would bring more people into the tax credit system, the real reason is that it would affect many more people (using combined household) income and there would be much more noise. This way they get to divide and conquer. The outcome we are left with some households earning a combined salary of ?50K+ (single earner scenario), losing some or all of the benefit, with the dual earner scenario been able to earn up to ?99K and keep all of it. I for one will fight this unfair policy to the bitter end.

I have researched this unfair policy extensively. In this scenario i cannot see how you will be forced to pay the Tax. Father and Mother live together and have children, Father is earns >50K, Mother earns <50K. Mother claims the CB for all children in her name only and pays the money into an account also in her name only (of which father has no access to). Father receives letter from HMRC asking if Mother is willing to give up CB, so father will not be liable to Tax. Father asks Mother is she receives CB and will stop claiming it. Mother tells Father her financial affairs are her business only and will not disclose if she does or does not receive it. The Mother continues to claim CB without telling the Father. The father receives his Tax return and is asked to declare if the family receive CB and enter the amount on the form so the tax can be deducted. Father again asks Mother, she again tells him her financial affairs are her business and will not disclose as there is no law that forces her to. Father then calls HMRC to ask if the mother is in receipt of CB and how much so he can declare on the Tax return. The HMRC are unable to tell the Father if the Mother is in receipt of the benefit or how much she receives because of individual taxation and data protection laws. The father submits ?0 on the tax return and states he has made reasonable attempts to obtain the information, but was unable to establish how much Tax he is liable for. As this is all unworkable, i fully expect to see another U-Turn on this!