Cut to child benifit for people earning over 100k to help fund childcare

Heres Johnny wrote: »

People being punished for doing well again if this happens. Also some other article in indo about public support for a 3rd tax bracket of 60% or something for high earners.

I think punished is a bit strong.
Don't look at it as being taken from you, rather than its given to someone else.

However, I think what it can be spent on should be tightly controlled. A-la food stamps, or childrens clothes. Stamps being much easier to control.

We need to widen the tax net so that more people pay less, not less people pay more.
I dont see an issue with a 3rd bracket but it would need to kick in above 200K.
Again, make sure *everyone* is paying something before you try to cream off the top 2%.

100k is not a large household income.

All this will do is force one or both partners to work part time to bring down their income to below 100k.

Perhaps they could change it from a "cash in hand" payment to a tax credit. Or another non-cash form of support.

€100k isn't actually all that much when it comes to a 2-3 child family with 2 working parents who live in Dublin or other expensive areas.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

You can use my address..... be grand!;)

Heres Johnny wrote: »

People being punished for doing well again if this happens. Also some other article in indo about public support for a 3rd tax bracket of 60% or something for high earners.
Real case of I don't want to pay tax but I want anyone earning more than me to pay my share.
Where's the incentive to earn more if it's just eaten up in tax.

Punishing people for doing well. I never heard such whinging. People born into lower socio-economic groups suffer from poorer health, lower quality education, far higher stress and less chance succeed in life. Yet the people doing well are being punished with a higher tax. Despite the fact that VAT disproportionately hits those on lower incomes.

Tax is never going to be 100% fair. We can share the tax burden so it doesn't focus exclusively on the top half and doesn't increase the already huge financial burden on lower income families and individuals.

I have to end by saying that as someone from a really poor family, a passion for what I do and real ambition in life a higher tax band doesn't and didn't act as a disincentive to me working hard.

If I actually heard someone being put off education, hard work or being ambitious because of a higher tax band I'd say they were a waste of space anyway.

Tell me should the minimum wage act as a disincentive to hard work?

Yet again in this country the people who pay the most will get the least. €100k means €50,000 each for a couple which isn't what most people would consider "high earner" especially in Dublin. It's above average but we're not talking about the jet set lifestyle. And that's before tax and mortgage repayments consume most of it.

Yes we need better and cheaper childcare but there is little chance that any money saved by taking more money off working people will go to actual childcare for their children. It will be lost in the increasing administration that surrounds childcare. The crèche my kids went to is audited each year by County Child Care, the HSE, Pobal, The Health and Safety Authority, TUSLA and various other state authorities. Cut those back to one overall organisation with one audit & reporting requirement and there is a huge saving straight away both in terms of the army of civil servant administrators and the costs creches incur servicing their constant demands for reports.

Yes child benefit needs to be reformed but I would suggest something like paying it in vouchers that can't be saved for college or spent on booze, bouncy castles and bookies. That way the state can ensure the money is spent on children and is spent immediately thus boosting the economy. It also means the money is spent on real children here in Ireland not on made up children scattered across Eastern Europe.

And what about people with kids who are beyond the crèche stage. Telling a couple that we're taking their child benefit off them so their teenage kids could have had an extra morning a week in a pre-school if only they were young enough is political suicide. If the state wants to help them then adjust the school working hours to fit in with the modern working day not the 1950s working day. Have school start at 10am to 4pm with kids allowed to be dropped off to school from 8:30am and last pickup at 5:30pm when parents can actually pick them up. The extra time either side could be used for sport, homework, study etc. There is a real saving on childcare needs right there. But no. Instead the government still holds to the 1950s belief that a mother should easily be finished her housework in time to be at the school gate at 3pm.

There are many things we could do to reform childcare but yet again the government opt for their default option of taking more money from tax payers now and just throwing it a disfunctional system. Education, Health, Public Transport, Roads and now childcare. The pattern is always the same. Increase tax, spend more, get less.

If we continue to increase the tax burden on working people while at the same time cutting the benefits and services they get for that tax then we are headed for a revolution but not the sort that the pinko left champions of the welfare class are looking for.

bluewolf wrote: »

Ha, i saw that. Tax people more just not me. Rich people pay 50% of overall tax already but tax them more because they have things and i don't wah.

The unions are in favour of this,











.....and surprisingly, so are IBEC.

Deleted User wrote: »

You know the stereotype of the single mother riding every cock in a mile radius, squeezing out loads of kids and using it to get a council house?

Well, unfortunately, despite being a stereotype, it's a real situation.

Do you have her number - I know someone else has probably beat me to it this month, but i'll be ready come the 3rd July.

It’s almost like there’s a war on families having kids.
In recent times we’ve seen marriage equality introduced which will lead to open homosexual relationships rather than gay guys and girls pretending to be straight, having a couple of kids but having gay sex on the side. Marriage equality allows them to be who they are which unfortunately means less kids.

Abortion legislation will impact birth rates.

And now the incentive to work harder is eroded if these proposed cuts are put in place.

What next? Sacrifice your first born to thr tax man?

The problem here is that household with higher incomes likely have higher childcare costs than those on lower incomes.

That is, a two-income household earning 100k with two kids will have childcare costs of about €18k. That's 36k of their gross income.

A one-income household earning 50k with two kids will have childcare costs of zero.

So the benefit to the two-income household of going to work is about €580 a month into your hand. I dunno about you, but if someone told me I had to do a 40 hour week and barely see my kids from one end of week to the next, and I'll earn €134 a week, I'd tell you where to go.

This is why this is a bad move really - you're more likely to drive people (mostly women) out of the workforce and further reduce birth rates because it'll make no sense for two-income couples to have kids and both work.

It would make more sense to scrap child benefit and have something like a general means-tested child benefit supplement that's only available to two-income or single-parent families which reduces gradually as your income goes up.

Well I tell you what. I was asked to take on a new project in work. Intellectually challenging, an opportunity to gain mastery over new skills and a potential increase in wage. That was until I found out about this potential child benefit which supersedes all I've said previously. Now I actually feel punished despite having all the other opportunities and will now work less.

I mean does anyone actually think like this?

Ironically the same three posters who criticise people on social welfare for not having incentive to work thanked posts with this sentiment and/or posted similar waffle. Take a look at yourselves in the mirror lads.