Family allowance

Just in case you’ve been blinded by Brexit and you’re contemplating voting Tory and I truly hope you haven’t been, I’d like to remind you of me of one of Osborne’s little wheezes. The revenue inspectors have been round our village today carrying out means testing on families to claw back any overpayments that hard put families may have received. Literally going through income versus outgoings with families.
It seems that the rules on this payment are that if you have two people in the family earning £49k you can have it, but if there is a single earner on £50k you don’t qualify.
Now I may be wrong about this and I’m sure I won’t be long in being put right if I am, but this is how the families who have been hit have explained it to me. To those who have received it the clawback goes back to 2015 and interest rates are applied. If you, or anybody you know is affected, please take this as a warning. If families are found to be in hardship from this then they are to pay at the rate of £100 per month for 5 years.
When all is said and done about Brexit and when the glowing reception given to Farage has died down. Remember who the Tories are and what they have done over the last 10 years. This isn’t about principles, or foreign labour, or Churchill, or Dunkirk. This is about real hardship for real people who are finding it hard to make ends meet. It’s about working families having to use food banks to make ends meet. It’s about “no money days”.
If you don’t give a f*** vote Farage, vote Tory.

 

I can't get my head round £49k and hardship. Thought it was £50k anyway

 

Try living in south Cambridgeshire when your paying £1200 in rent before you start every month. They came round to one of my neighbour's and did the means test and came to the conclusion that the family had £45 to play with at the end of the month. He said "well you'll have to pay £100 off the arrears every month" thereby giving them a deficit of £65. Food bank can make up the difference no doubt.
Point is that it isn't based on family income it's based on the income of the top earner in the family. Two people on £49k total family income £98k get it, one couple where one earns £50k doesn't.
Further point is that Osborne's first act was to lower the tax for top earners and then started taxing normal people who are trying to make ends meet with kids.

 

I think the way that the rule works defies logic somewhat, but that being said, to suggest a family where one of the wage earners is on 50k is living in poverty is faintly ridiculous and a gross distortion of the concept of poverty. They would only be a couple of grand or so away from being a higher rate taxpayer. Are we really suggesting 50k is below the poverty line?

 

The payment was to include all irrespective of class, salary status etc . It was to help the poorest but include everybody so there would be no dissent , guess why the Tories meddled with it .

 

To save some money in a way that was least controversial by not giving it to people who don't need it?

 

No !!guess again .

 

Oh I get it! That’s why they gave tax breaks to high earners! It’s only fair that you take it away from people trying to bring up kids!
Why then isn’t it based on household income and not the income of the highest earner?
I’m shocked that these people can enter your home and go through your private business.
They decided that the deficit from the bankers greed would be paid for by the poorest in society and not the rich. If you can’t see that, there’s no hope for society.

 

****.. my 1st thought is that at £1200 per month I would seriously find work up north and move house promptly..

Could have a mansion up in tarn for that..

Said same to a mate of mine working in London but paying thru the nose for a 1 bed flat. Showed him similar job on a very similar wage up here and that he could have a 4 bed barn conversion and a huge stress lifted from his life.

Can we have an independence referendum in Yorkshire please, they don't live in reality darn there.

 

That's for a two bedroom terrace. It's a nice one, but she's got a girl if 12 and a boy of 6. She'll need a third bedroom soon.
She's now got an income reduction of £100. The fact they've got working people against working people is shocking.
Privatised rent to a decent landlord who has probably got half a dozen properties.

 

Thing is here is the north south divide, especially in the housing market..

50k even 25k each up north would defo not put the average family on the poverty line..

What is the answer here? Create a bigger divide by allowing a bigger allowance in the south?

It's the London centric for everything that has created such a divide. No fault to the average resident down there but the region in particular is so out of touch with the rest of the country.

Best services, transport funding etc...

All pushed house prices through the roof and created a country in a country.

Can't just blame the current government either, this divide has been there all my life, all that's happened is that it has grown wider to such an extent as there is no answer now...

 

None of that. Family allowance shouldn’t be means tested anywhere. Kids are kids and southern kids are equally valuable to northern kids.
Law makers who don’t use the laws they make. Education secretaries who don’t use the schools, health secretaries who don’t use the health service. They’ll do it again, partially because they don’t understand what it’s like to be a working person without a moneyed background and partly because they are greedy and don’t give a f***. They will do the same again and if allowed they’ll do worse. They will sell the health service!

 

Pretty sure from a legal perspective they can’t just turn up and demand this. The problem with refusing though (as I understand it) is they will just stop everything to make you play ball, so in essence bully people into agreeing.

 

The approach was “we need to make an appointment to discuss this, or you can get it over with now”. They left saying “let’s hope we get a better government next time”.
Precisely the same approach they use on Amazon and Google.

 

I thought that those who have someone in the household earning 50k pa or more were required to pay back 1% of Child Benefit payments received for every extra £100 earned over £50,000 each tax year? You can still claim child benefit when the higher earner is bringing in more than 50K (up to 60k) but will only either receive a proportion of it, or pay back some, as above. I think its called The High Income Child Benefit Charge.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fallen foul of the rule due to simply forgetting about the threshold being introduced in 2012, and also that it was the responsibility of the individual to notify HMRC if annual income exceeded 50k.

Gift aid contributions, and also pre tax pension contributions among other things can be deducted from an individuals annual total income, so someone just over the threshold may still be able to claim full child benefit without penalty.

 

They didn’t stop the payment. It was up to the receiver to register and that wasn’t clear. I also spoke to a man with 7 kids and he owes £20000 and is paying £350 per month.
Ask yourself whether this is good government caring about it’s people. These are people who are working to bring up children
Now ask yourself, do you trust Boris Johnson to do better for you?
Brexit is a smokescreen to cover the abuses of the Tory government.

 

OK! Does it say what happens when Katy earns 30k and Leroy earns 45k? Joint earnings 75k?
I’ve talked to people today who didn’t expect this and have to pay £100 per month for 5 years. Therefore they have accrued 6k in debt because a single earner made 55k per year. The only conclusion I can come to from that is that:
A) the government site is not giving the complete picture because it’s being masked
B) the ramp up over the 50k is extremely steep.
C) it was seriously meant to mislead
Osborne’s fixation with cutting benefits has led to food banks, homelessness, suicides and depression in the disabled.

 

I suspect they think the woman will stay at home and be a good housewife, like women should in their world.