“Charging the poorest something is not the only proposal: we identify eight others including counting child maintenance and benefits as income, which would exclusively hit families”

Um, only because those benefits are exclusively given to families in the first place.

Counting benefits as income for tax reasons sounds like a bad idea to me. But as a non-family chap, I find this use of “family” to mean “people who deserve special treatment” to be very annoying.

Well the more we have to spend to keep politicians: Parish, District, County, National and European in the manner to which they and their lackeys have been accustomed, the less we have to spend on food, heating,lighting, transport, oh and that much important High Street.

It is also being devolved to the other nations with a cut applied first.

In Scotland, they are bridging the gap to ensure the level of CT benefit remains the same for another couple of years. the aim being that Scotland will simply devise a new system of LA finance, and the time delay will ensure the new systems will be in place.

In Wales, the labour government have decided not to bridge the gap. But with less than 8 months to go until CT benefit is devolved, they have yet to announce how they intend to replace it – let alone told local authorities and begin to update IT systems etc.

Instead labour ministers have told charities raising concerns over this that their repsonse will be to blame the tories.

So the labour party doesn’t come out of this saga with flying marks either. And you lot are still wondering why Salmond is popular…..

I thought if you couldn’t pay it was paid for you?

@2Barry J

As a parish councillor I’m used to giving my time, four meetings a month plus bits and pieces, for nothing. Lucky me!

You fucking idiot.

“I thought if you couldn’t pay it was paid for you?”

No. You have to pay it. But people in some circumstances get council tax benefit so that they can pay themselves – in some cases this will be 100% of what they have to pay, in other cases it will be less.

What is happening is that central government cut the overall budget for CT benefit by 10%. But rather than decide how to administer the cut, they have passed the buck to local authorities (which is political speak for ‘i don’t know what the fuck to do so I will let somebody even more useless than me decide) and the devolved governments to decide how to change the existing scheme to fit within the new budget.

Whoa, I thought the Lib Dems were all about taking ‘the poor’ out of tax. Yet, here we are after raising the threshold of income tax by a few quid a week, the poor will have to fund that with a massive hike in their council tax.

So how much did it cost to raise the income tax threshold?
How much went to the poor? (define as you will)
how much will the poor need to shell out to fund this gap?

as a non-family chap, I find this use of “family” to mean “people who deserve special treatment” to be very annoying.

Special treatment for children dependent on adults for food and shelter?

Oh, the horror!

@ 8 BenM

“Special treatment for children dependent on adults for food and shelter?

Oh, the horror!”

Strawman attacks in place of an actual argument?

Childish!

@ Ben M

If you’re actually prepared to talk about this sensibly, my points are as follows:

1)Saying something that reduces what you get in child benefits “would exclusively hit families” is debateably accurate, but misleading, because it sounds like an attack on families when in fact it’s the removal of a special privilege (a privilege I approve of, incidentally).

As a reductio ad absurdum, imagine we had a system where white people got given £50pcm for being white. Then, when someone tried to remove this system, people said “It’s racist! It only hits white people!” Doesn’t ring true, does it?

[I also resent the use of the word "family" to exclusively mean "people with children", but that's not important.]

2) We have a long history of using “family” as a byword for “good” in English politics. If something can be described as being “great for families”, in a lot of people’s eyes this makes it a good thing. This is obviously stupid; I could justify almost anything as being “great for families” if I tried hard enough. It’s a dog-whistle, in other words, like “traditional” or “British”. A thought-terminating cliche.

You can take issue with either of those points if you like. But if you’re going to keep lying and claiming that I’m against child benefits, I’ll ignore you as a time-waster.

Hell yes. Cambridge City Council have just launched a ‘consultation’ on how they’ll handle cutting Council Tax Benefit, and funding the shortfall.

Included in the ideas are using Council Tax as a punitive measure on the unemployed to try to force them to look for work. Also punitive measures for landlords who leave properties empty. Local Government, and Cambridge is a Labour/Lib Dem council, are catching the ‘moral arbiter’ bug from Mr Cameron it seems. They are not simply in the business of collecting and spending taxes, but now want to interfere in the lives of people who don’t fit their moral norms.

They are abolishing council tax benefit in England, and devolving it to Wales and Scotland. As planeshift says above, the Labour government in Wales has refused to bridge the 10% deficit in income which means the full effect of the cuts will be felt here. In Scotland the SNP government has covered the full deficit so there will be no reduction in council tax benefit at all. This is a huge shame in Wales, while we also oppose what the Tories and Lib Dems are doing but Labour isn’t a viable alternative. It’s also likely that if and when Labour returns to power in Westminster they will not restore these benefits in England.

@CG #10:

As a reductio ad absurdum, imagine we had a system where white people got given £50pcm for being white

But being white doesn’t cost extra; having children does. The effect of counting child benefits (broadly speaking) as income without increasing those benefits to take account of the CT proportion payable is to give the parents the choice between feeding/clothing/housing their children, or paying the CT. Unless, that is, you take the view that those benefits are currently more than is necessary to cover those essentials.

@ 13 Robin

As I pointed out, it’s a reductio ad absurdum. Therefore not a direct analogy.

The point is that, if Group A gets more benefits under the rules than Group B (regardless of whether that’s fair), it’s always possible to claim that an attempt to equalise said benefits is “an attack on Group A”. But normally misleading.

Similarly, you could describe gender equality legislation as an “attack on men” as it would make it harder for men to get work, even though it only did so by removing an unfair advantage over women. See?