Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
5 October 2010
07:0573781Gong to be nterestng, seems there are some flaws
wil osbourne back off as its election loser
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
5 October 2010
07:2673782Ross - you are mixing up Labour and Conservative - its Labour who in their 13 years did everything based of their partisan interest.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
5 October 2010
08:0473786To expand this a little.
What would you do to save money on Child benefit as an alternative to this?
I would, instead stop CB at 16 and limit it to no more than 3 children.
In addition once the first, eldest, child leaves home it should be the first child payment that ends.
Plus I would give it a basic rate tax credit so higher rate tapayers would pay 20% or 30% tax on it.
Marek, I think it was, introduced another issue regarding universal benefits - the State Pension. This is of course contributory in the sense that you need to work and pay NI for 30 years to get the maximum amount of BSP, also you get credits for looking after children/or on jobseekers.
One little known fact is that at age 65 you get an 'age allowance' an extra tax free allowance bringing your tax free income up from £6,475 to £9,490 per annum This extra tax allowance gets lost at a rate of £1 for every £2 that you have in excess of £22,900 in taxable income. So effectively pensioners, with a better retirement income, are taxed at 30% on a band of c. £6,000 above £22,900. Often it is when people start to receive the State Pension that their income increases into this band (where they retired earlier).
You should also note that often it is the State pension that is the only income that increases with inflation (soon to be prices)
I am involved daily in advising clients how to maximise their tax allowances so they do not get caught out by this age allowance trap. Often I find a married couple, a non earning wife and a well pensioned husband, where the wife does not even use up all her tax-free allowance while the husband is caught by the 'age allowance trap' paying 30% effective tax, in some ways a similar anomaly to what the CB proposals might bring about. It happens at the 40% tax level as well. Some people though leave it too late to plan. But still, its a better problem to have than not enough retirement income.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
5 October 2010
08:0673787D Cameron on BBC said these decsons will remain iin support of osbourne and rightly.
But as Marek points out theres a real unfairness in these proposals, and certainly middle class families already kicking off
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Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,895
5 October 2010
08:2173789If families can afford foreign holidays do they really need Child Benefit, as I said before do away with it altogether and tack it onto Tax Credits etc.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 700- Registered: 11 Jun 2010
- Posts: 2,868
5 October 2010
09:0673795My father used to say if families could afford to run a car should they draw benefit...
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Lincolnshire Born and Bred
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
5 October 2010
09:2073798Kath
I suppose life has moved on slightly since our fathers day..should kids from poorer families not experience a foreign holiday ? even the government recognise the benefit of holidays in the sun giving them to kids in care and secondly depriving a family on benefit the chance to run and own a car could seriously affect his job prospects. I refer of cousre to working families receiving benefits not the bone idle who have hols or drive but have no intention of working for it..there is a big difference.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
5 October 2010
12:2073807Following on from Mareks post no 36. ie married couple earning 80,000 still get the benefit, one person in marriage working getting 44,000, doesnt get the benefit. It looks like George Osborne has dropped a public relations clanger here on a big big scale, worst of it is that he is alienating his own voters in middle England and even worse still, alienating the tory supporting newspapers...which takes a lot of doing.
So...how to win friends and influence people..ermm no..how to lose friends and not influence anybody and on a mightily grand scale.
The calculations are askew. Mums staying at home with three children for example are bashed in a big way and lose out. The husband might be working but if he makes more than 44,000 then they get no benefit at all. On the other hand....Husband and wife working, kids in care of some sort, each earning 43,000, total income in house £86,000, get the full monty of benefit!
I think this one may have to go back to the drawing board which is going to prove mightily embarassing for David Cameron and with huge eggies on 'Ossy' Osbornes face Im afraid.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
5 October 2010
12:2773808As I have said previously PaulB. This government (like even John Major's, who I did not like) is not governing for the narrow party interest but in the national interest. That does mean upsetting your own supporters at times.
I am quite sure, though that in the longer term it will pay electoral dividends with a much healthier economy and that is what is important.
You are too used to Labour and Brown's partisan calculations all the time where he was keener on wrongfooting the Conservatives than good governance.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
5 October 2010
12:3773809i still maintain that this is unworkable and will end up like the tax credits fiasco.
what if the breadwinner expects to earn 30 grand and ends up through change of job/overtime or some other factor earning 45 grand?
will the government claw back all the child benefit for the year or work out week by week what he or she was entitled to?
this will be an administrative nightmare and will require an army of civil servants to do all the calculations.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
5 October 2010
13:2773817No Howard, it wont work that way. The whole idea and structure is based around simplicity and avoiding such problems as we had with the nightmare of tax credits.
Varying self-employed income is always a potential problem, of course but oddly in many situations I have seen professionally most problems are not the self-employed but employed people with settled income, though often with more than one source.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
5 October 2010
13:4773825Paulb
You wll see from baz's postings as to tried to point out at a very early stage, this is a politcital nghtmare for the conservatives.
As those working mums said, we fully appreciate theres needs to be reform, but like mr cameron said, it needs to be fair.
This is clearly showing some unfairness, as like pau b says It wll upset the tories own supporters, who agree with principle.
Strange.
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
5 October 2010
15:0873831interestingly the financial times that normally supports the reds, this time the yellows, is encouraging dave and george to renege on their election pledge and abolish the winter fuel payments, bus passes and the t.v.licence for the over 75's.
earlier adam boulton repeatedly asked dave whether these things would stay, dave refused to answer the direct question, merely saying that he would like them to stay.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
5 October 2010
20:0273865i see that david cameron was forced into apoligizing for taking child benifit away from needy parents on the six o clock itv news.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
5 October 2010
20:3973867If the new child benefit laws go through in Britain, the e.u. parliament wouldn't care less! Don't think they would collect money from other e.u. states to give to Britain! But they would still collect all the money they could from Britain. The most intelligent Party proposal I know of in our Country is that of UKIP, to quit the e.u. and sort our own mess out. We need our own money and can't afford to keep dishing it out to most fertile e.u. states who act as if they were in the Sahara Desert and it hadn't rained for ten years!
Well yeah, so much is being written on the Forum bout Conservative policies and about New Labour and Old Labour policies, I thought I'd write about UKIP policies once in a blue moon!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
5 October 2010
20:5573872UKIP - complete irrelivance in the real world, nonentities.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
5 October 2010
21:0073874Now now! UKIP supporters got the Tories into governement by voting in large numbers for Tory MP candidtaes, which is why UKIP increased its vote by only 50% at the last General Election, Barry!
As you know, Tory, Labour and Liberal leaders all asked for an election reform to allow proportionate representation, and this would mean that UKIP supporters could vote only for UKIP, and have mny seats in Parliament.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
5 October 2010
21:0373875By the way, Barry, if you look at the numbers of UKIP votes at the last e.u. parliament elections, you will see that UKIP came second, in front of Labour and Liberals. UKIP's MEPs in Brussels keep the e.u. parliament under observation from within and make known the contrary voice to e.u. policies, which Tory MEPs in Brussels don't do!
C'est la difference!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
5 October 2010
21:1273877you are right on this one alex, blue barry never ceases to amaze me.
clever bloke who will make a good argument for his cause, then posts something like "ukip are an irrelevance" even though he realises that the vote from your lot hurt his party badly at the last hustings.
no wonder our keith goes for his throat.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
5 October 2010
21:4773882Thanks, Howard! However, I must state here, that there are two views on what you just stated: One is that UKIP supporters caused the Tories to lose 20 seats (those who voted UKIP). But the other, which I have been stating, is that in fact, many UKIP supporters didn't vote UKIP in May 2010, but voted for the Tory candidates, so as to be sure that Labour candidates would not get in! Hence, UKIP supporters probably gave the Tories many seays. All in all, there are a lot more UKIP supporters than the 900.000 that voted for UKIP!
