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You are here: Resources For Families Families and money Tax credits and the benefits system

Family Voice October 2008 poll - Tax credits and the benefits system

This is what you told us:
Whilst you were evenly split as to whether the benefit system is an effective way to support families (47% agreed with the statement, 47% disagreed, 6% didn't know), the majority of you (78%) did not think the tax credit system was.

The current tax credit system is an effective way to support working families?

Many of you contributed your thoughts on the Community Board - some with ideas on how to improve the system, others with concerns about barriers that parents face returning to work:

Rachel thought that more monitoring was needed of who receives the benefits and how they are used. She thought that tailored support was needed which was far wider than just benefits:

"Families need help with communication, aspirations, communications, parenting, social isolation, social communication, education. Yes, people need financial help, but they need to understand what they are getting, they need to trust that the benefits they receive can be relied on and not subject to change (as with working family tax credit and over/under payments), and they need support to move out of the trap of benefits."

Marilyn strongly argued the case that to provide fair taxation for families income splitting needed to be introduced. She explained:

"at present the carer at home loses out on his/her personal tax allowance which disadvantages the whole family if he/she is at home doing the caring and believes that caring is a worthwhile activity in its own right. UNFAIR! It means the one earner family loses out and is treated differently. One might say that the mother who stays at home causes her family to be discriminated against in the taxation system. This is simply unfair."

But JCN disagreed:

"the Child Tax Credit system is a well thought out and effective measure for working parents. The problems have been with it's administration, overpayments etc." JCN thought that the problem for most parents was flexible affordable childcare and that it should be provided free, universally like most other EU countries.

Marilyn responded by pointing out that childcare is not free or universal in most countries:

"in those countries which do provide a lot of childcare (which a lot of people are beginning to question) their taxation rates are at a very high level - levels which would not be tolerated here in the UK."

Andrea highlighted the difficulties facing parents on low incomes accessing further education:

"The majority of our learners are on low incomes and can claim Learner Support Funds so they don't have to pay for courses and get help with childcare costs.
However we recently had to close our crèche as we no longer have any funding - surely these are the sort of projects the government should be willing to fund if they really are committed to getting families out of poverty and back to work."

Julie pointed out that if you are an older carer whose family income is just over a certain level, they have to pay for further training:

"Carer's allowance should confer the same assistance opportunities as job seeker if you are prepared to register for work and be able to utilise the extra help that NEETS ('not currently engaged in employment, education and training') and others get. The wage needed to make work financially worth while is often quite high but the mental health and self esteem value is very high."

Other contributors were concerned about being over paid and ending up owing lots of money, begin left with a very small amount after other benefits had been taken into account, and the emphasis being on financial support rather than looking at other ways to support families.

All your contributions will feed into our campaign work over the coming year. We are sure that this is a topic that will stay on the political agenda as the Government looks at a variety of measures to support families through the 'credit crunch'.