The government has announced at the Conservative party conference that, as part of their fiscal austerity programme to eliminate the public spending deficit, it is only fair to cut child benefit for those parents considered better-off and, therefore, able to carry a heavier share of the tax burden i.e. those with annual earnings of \u00a344,000 or more and in a higher tax bracket.
\nHowever, due to the perverse and socially engineered effects of the current UK tax system, where everyone (whether married or not) is taxed as a separate individual, this would seem to imply that a single mother earning more than \u00a344,000 would lose her child tax credits whilst a household where both parents each earn less than \u00a344,000 for a joint income of up to \u00a388,000, could still retain their child benefits. It has as a result been quite roundly attacked as manifestly unfair although an opinion poll taken immediately after found 85% of respondents in favour and 15% against, roughly in the same proportions as those who would still retain child benefits versus those who would lose out!
\nGiven that the Conservative party in common with its opponents must employ clever political thinkers and analysts, this begs the question that, if it is so easy to pick such obvious holes in this child benefit tax policy, why announce it now during the Conservative party conference and in advance of the detailed programme of cuts planned to be announced on 20th October? One would like to think that this is part of an overall policy to guide public opinion towards the benefits of a tax system which not only provides tax concessions for children but also for the supporting married couples, taxed on their joint income as per the French system for example.
\nThe Conservative party has traditionally supported marriage as a source of stability in society and the prime minister in defending these proposed child benefit cuts has already suggested that married status should be recognised within the tax system. There are of course the arguments of those who say that this discriminates against single, childless individuals and that there is no evidence that homes with two committed but unmarried partners cannot provide as stable a family environment as a married couple. In albeit mainly Catholic but constitutionally secular France, the tax system favouring marriage and children can also be traced back to the need to rebuild the nation after two world wars fought over its soil. Indeed with the almost statutory three children the resulting low level of direct income tax paid is highly attractive to young parents, during their early and generally lower income married life.
\nWith civil partnerships including same sex couples now recognised under UK law, why cannot the tax system recognise marriage and the added costs of raising children during the early, more financially-stretched years? Certainly, Ed.Milliband the recently elected new-generation leader of the Labour party, who has in the past been too busy to have his name on the birth certificate of his first child, has admitted to the press that he is considering marriage to his partner in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The government has announced at the Conservative party conference that, as part of their fiscal austerity programme to eliminate the public spending deficit, it is only fair to cut child benefit for those parents considered better-off and, therefore, able to carry a heavier share of the tax burden i.e. those with annual earnings of \u00a344,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,49,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chairmans-blog","category-child-benefit-cuts","category-fairness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":550,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions\/550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}