Child benefit is to be axed for higher rate taxpayers from 2013, Chancellor George Osborne has announced.
Talking on BBC One’s Breakfast ahead of his appearance at the Conservative party conference, he said the move would save about £1bn.
“It’s a big decision for us, but we think it’s absolutely necessary and fair given the financial situation we face,” he said.
Families earning over about £44,000 would be affected.
He said: “It’s very hard to justify taxing people on much lower incomes in order to pay the child benefit to some of the better off in our society.
“It’s not a decision taken lightly, but given the scale of the debts Labour’s left us with, and given they’ve left us with no plan and we’ve had to come up with proposals, we think this is fair.”
At the moment, parents are paid £20.30 a week for the eldest child and £13.40 for subsequent children, with payments continuing until the age of 19 for those in full-time education.
I agree with the principal of this cut, why should someone earning well over the national average need this benefit, the one thing that is puzzling me is that the cap is for a single earner not joint earnings so potentially a couple could still be earning well over £50k and still get child support.
Also there are families out there that produce offspring like there is no tommorow who cannot afford the kids they already have so why should us tax payers take on the burden, if you can’t afford kids don’t have them….