Child benefit

[rootsnall]

His wife.

Ahhhh ! Good thinking batman. Forgetting the old spouse and 50/50 shareholder scam.

[mudskipper]

Ahhhh ! Good thinking batman. Forgetting the old spouse and 50/50 shareholder scam.

Yeah, I'm starting to feel less "guilty" already.

[eek]

Ahhhh ! Good thinking batman. Forgetting the old spouse and 50/50 shareholder scam.

Scam? Its been around since the 1930's and I think it only appeared then because prior to that a wife's income was deemed to be the man's.

[formant]

Well, on the same basis I could have taken no divvies and got a full maintenance grant for my daughter to go to Uni.

But that, to me, felt "immoral" (i.e. wrong) and I didn't do it.

I suspect your average man on the street would consider it "immoral" that a contractor earning > 60K a year continues to get child benefit.

But in this case I'm not changing what I already do - it's just how it panned out. Still feels wrong though. I expect I'll get over it.

IMHO, morality isn't a great angle to throw at this. I for example don't think it's moral to financially penalise those who've held off on reproduction until they could actually afford their offspring.

I find it immoral that we all fund a benefit system that simply doesn't benefit us all. In countries like Germany you pay higher taxes/social security but if you then lose you're job you're not completely screwed, as you'll get roughly 70% of your previous income for a year - it's a safety net for everyone, not just for those at the very bottom. Here you get 71 quid a week on contributions based jobseekers. Other benefits are only available to those households with no working family members. :-/

I mean, I'm glad I made it to a point where £20/week in child benefit doesn't actually matter - but I certainly care about the implications of this.

I think you shouldn't worry too much about this.

The maintenance grant is a very different cut-off though as far as I'm aware, which may be going to slightly excessive lengths if you try to claim that anyway. Nothing wrong with that though. Your taxes already funded that, too.

[rootsnall]

Scam? Its been around since the 1930's and I think it only appeared then because prior to that a wife's income was deemed to be the man's.

Just a turn of phrase, I'm in the take what you can get camp, and just reorganised 'my affairs' to keep child benefit. I wouldn't criticise Starbucks or the worst of the benefit scrougers, if they can get away it then its the useless goverments fault, not theirs.

I'm currently having a rest from contracting so haven't been keeping up with things, whats the current status of S660 ?

[d000hg]

Scam? Its been around since the 1930's and I think it only appeared then because prior to that a wife's income was deemed to be the man's.

For a 1-man company like a contractor it is, well not a scam, but a loophole. I thought the idea of this was that in small businesses, both partners end up involved whether they wanted to be or not. I can certainly see this being banned for PSCs.

Why have you placed the BNP and UKIP in same sentence like that? Your sentence encourages a belief that the two parties are similar in nature. I can assure you they are not. One is a party run by racist facists (BNP) and the other is a party run by people of all creeds, that want the UK out of the EU.

They're both loony fringe, one just has better PR.

[eek]

Child benefit

For a 1-man company like a contractor it is, well not a scam, but a loophole. I thought the idea of this was that in small businesses, both partners end up involved whether they wanted to be or not. I can certainly see this being banned for PSCs.

.

I think they want to, I don't think they will succeed. To be honest it wouldn't bother me 35% of the company income is no longer contracting related and that is rapidly increasing. When I finish at the current clientco I think that'll be it.

[formant]

They're both loony fringe, one just has better PR.

Ah, something we can very much agree on.

Considering UKIP frequently count perfectly legal EU citizens into their 'illegal immigrant' figures, they're really not too far off from the BNP. They're about quite a bit more (unpleasant stuff) than just wanting out of the EU.

Bit off-topic though.

[original PM]

I spend all my child benefits on beer n tabs

[Hawk]

We put the money in their childrens ISA's.

I know of contractors paying themselves minimum wage and claiming working tax credits. All legal if morally questionable.

I see no problem with any approach