Should child benefit/children’s allowance be taxed?

It's extra income, so should be taxed as such.

Most other social welfare payments are taxed.

Rather interesting if you have twins you get 1.5 times the allowance for each kid so 2 kids gets you a payment for 3.

That’s easy. You just include it as income for taxation purposes every year.

Should really just be a tax credit

IBEC are lobbying for this and want the money saved re-directed to subsidise child care for lower paid workers.

Join the dots.

Beware of business lobby groups sticking their noses into social policy.

if you are a PAYE employee then your child benefit will be included in your income each pay period. The same as if you were in receipt of any other SW taxable benefit. Thus, like your wages/salary it will be taxable. If you’re self employed then you’ll include it in your tax return. If you’re entirely reliant on SW then it’s not going to bring you into taxable income even if you are getting CB for 10 kids.

No. Because it would be one more way that those that work would get **** shafted

Lad up the road from me. One eyebrow, tonnes of kids, shorts worn into tesco 365 days a year. Not a care in the world.

House paid for by the taxpayer, dole paid for by the tax payer for him and her, healthcare paid for and children's allowance or "Mickey money" as its known in the trade also paid for.

His kids are no more important than mine, so why should i be taxed on it.

I think it should be reduced once you reach 3 children. Parent should have incentives to keep children in school. Let me a payment to child attendance. The system needs to be changed so young people are encouraged to stay in school and not have babies. Having one baby when you are young is a mistake, having three more when you can't afford to is ridiculous. I think working parents should get more tax relief so that even one parent working is more beneficial than being on the dole. Also mandatory parenting classes for anyone having children.

It should really be used to fund things like school meals and creches / Montessori. My own personal bugbear about it is that I have an Irish child that is living outside the EU and I'm not entitled to child benefit for that child, unlike the children I have here. It's discriminatory.

SW never take outgoings into account when means testing except in some tiny very exceptional circumstances. That’s because outgoings are more often then not a matter of lifestyle choice. For example take Mr O’Brien working in the same factory with Mr Ryan both with the same high salary with stay at home spouses, both with 3 kids under 12, both were married and bought houses in 2010.

Mr and Mrs O’Brien took out a mortgage of €240,000 for a huge house (now with small arrears)+ €30000 for a wedding and have an outstanding car loan of €25000 with the credit Union.

Mr and Mrs Ryan bought a fixer upper for €60000 which is paid for but not yet fixed up and drive a 2011 Renault scenic.

If they are means tested on the outgoings as well as the income then the O’Brien’s will get the child benefit but the Ryan’s won’t. How is that fair?

Do we want to encourage people to breed tax payers or dole scroungers.

That seems a harsh reality. Means testing is a huge failure in this country. The only winners are those than can hide income. Using voucher's only add cost into any system. As it is the scroungers are nearly out breeding us.

I would leave it as is

You are only adding cost into the system. Why do we need to micromanage everything. You give people choice, if they want to p!SS there children's future up against a wall every third Tuesday of the month so be it. But do not punish the 80%+ who do not.

I don't think it should necessarily be axed for higher earners, these people pay a lot of tax and get very little in return as it is. But I think the whole idea of child benefit should be axed and the money put into subsidized child care for working parents.

All apart of working the system.

While am sure you are telling your kids to do well in school, go to college, get a good job and more. However there are those who's life goal is to have a few kids, put your name down on the housing list (unmarried mothers with kids go higher on the list) and have the bloke living with them - then he's either claiming the social himself or working. Doing both if he really wants to work the system.

Mothers staying at home is enshrined in our constitution:

  1° In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.

2° The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.

Bit sexist and you could argue that it's not being achieved, but I don't see why we'd be hell bent on forcing everyone into working all the time just to survive. There's societal benefits to not farming everything out to childcare services too

Not much use to those on a very low income then, whoes income might already be lower than their tax credits.

And absolutely no use to a stay at home mum, the benefit would go to the working parent.

No they are not that common. Again it nit picking. It's a particularly expensive time for patents that do have twins. For the first few years it's a particularly expensive time for such parents.

I go back to why micromanage people lives. It's a fixed allowance. It's 140/child/month. It's paid to the mother of the children. Technically if you tax it, is then the mother pays the tax.

Again we would creat income traps. Couples on moderate income would pay tax, PRSI and Tax at the lower rate.

A sole trader or company owner where the wife did not work could use there tax credit to offset the allowance.

The rate of CA is virtually the same as a single persons personal tax credit.