UK middle classes 'struggling despite incomes of up to £60k a year'

Re:UK middle classes 'struggling despite incomes of up to £6... by stranded22 on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @06:13AM (#39439943)

Yup, I am single earner earning £60k+ with a kid. Wife doesn’t work (extreme anxiety, working on it but takes time).

I am significantly worse off than if I was able to drop salary and she started working. Both with the tax bands but also with child benefit being removed once £60k has been hit. My friends were earning around £45k - £50k each - combined salary of £95k, and still received £80ish a month in child benefit. We lost out because I was earning £60k.

The only real benefit I get is being above the 40% tax bracket, I get a boost with my salary deduction for pension payment (pretax), but I am half expecting this to be raided soon, and I can’t pay enough into it anyway atm (cost of living crisis+ single earner for family renting in outer London).

Could be worse but still, fml sometimes.

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Re:UK middle classes 'struggling despite incomes of up to £6... by orwin on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @07:08AM (#39440293)

In France, the household income is taxed if the relationship is official (not necessarily marriage, you have free, fast alternatives). You'll be taxed the same if both earn 30k or if only one earn 60k. If I take old and rounded references, in both cases, you'll be taxed 10% of what your household earn above 18k,and 30% above 48k. With a child, 10% above 22.5k and that's it (data from a few years ago, the brackets start a bit higher now).

Basically, one adult count as 1 part, a child count as .5 (except the third who count as 1 whole part do not ask me why), you take total income and divide it by the number of part, and check where it lands in the tax brackets.

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Re:UK middle classes 'struggling despite incomes of up to £6... by BerislavLopac on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @07:29AM (#39440438)

> a child count as .5 (except the third who count as 1 whole part do not ask me why)

Just the third child, or any after the second? If the latter, I would assume it's an incentive to have more children.

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Re:UK middle classes 'struggling despite incomes of up to £6... by orwin on Wednesday February 21, 2024 @03:34AM (#39451423)

Just the third.

Also,you have other benefits (tied to retirement mostly) where getting your 3rd child is really advantageous, but every child past that isn't.

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Re:UK middle classes 'struggling despite incomes of up to £6... by Fire-Dragon-DoL on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @03:39PM (#39446587)

I have the same problem in Canada and it's really frustrating. Our lifestyle would be better staying as is, but I get taxed insanely hard, even if my wife doesn't work.

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