George Osborne: “When we’re asking so much of so many people across society I think it is a fair measure”
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.
Parents earning over about £44,000 who pay 40% tax and above will be affected.
It is estimated the change will affect about 15% – 1.2m – families.
Mr Osborne 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.”
He confirmed the cut would hit homes with a single or two high earners. But families with two parents on modest incomes – which might add up to over £44,000 – will keep the benefit.
He defended this by saying his plan was “the most straightforward” option – which avoided means testing.
Currently child benefit is paid to all families with children.
Mr Osborne said he expected the public to accept that it was not fair to tax someone earning £18,000 a year to pay child benefit to someone earning £50,000.
‘In it together’
“It’s not a decision we’ve 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.
“It means we’re all in this together. Each part of society is going to be making a contribution”
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 understand these people are not super-rich, but we have to make sure that we’re all in this together”
Mr Osborne announced in June in the Budget that the child benefit will be frozen for three years.
Send your pictures and videos to [email protected] or text them to 61124 (UK) or 0044 7725 100 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.
Read the terms and conditions
At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws. In most cases a selection of your comments will be published, displaying your name as you provide it and location unless you state otherwise. But your contact details will never be published.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
