Before the election, Labour's claims about Tory plans to cut child tax credits were dubbed "lies". Labour was exonerated yesterday as the truth was revealed.
Before the general election, the Labour party’s claims about Tory plans to cut child tax credits were dubbed “lies”. Labour was exonerated yesterday as the truth was revealed.
At his party conference speech last year, George Osborne said:
“we can no longer justify paying means tested tax credits to families with incomes over £50,000.”
Since then, the Conservative party has been consistent in claiming that “No families with a combined household income of £40,000 or less will be affected by our [tax credit] policy.”
George Osborne tried the trick again by claiming in his speech, “we will reduce payments to families earning over £40,000 next year and then align the thresholds for the child and family element.” But Table A2 in the Budget could not be clearer. By 2012-13, no family with one child over the age of one and income over £30,000 will get a penny in tax credits.
Earlier this year, a party election broadcast by the Labour party highlighted Conservative plans to “stop Child Tax Credit payments to hundreds of thousands of families on middle and modest incomes”. This followed a Labour briefing on February 3rd which claimed that:
“The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the Conservatives would need to take tax credits away from households with incomes of £31,000 to raise the money that the Conservatives have promised.”
A week later, then shadow work and pension secretary Theresa May, wrote an article on the Conservative party’s Blue Blog titled “Labour lies on child tax credits“:
Tax credits are designed to help families on low incomes, but we are now paying them to families earning over £50,000. We don’t think that is affordable anymore, so we have said that under a Conservative Government these families would stop receiving tax credits. No families with a combined household income of £40,000 or less will be affected by our policy.”
Who’s lying now, Theresa?
UPDATE 24/6:
It’s just worth being clear that this article – as per the note to the table above – refers only to those ineligible for baby, childcare, or disability tax credits.
54 Responses to “Tory “lies” on tax credits exposed”
paulsimpson1976
RT @leftfootfwd: Tory "lies" on tax credits exposed http://bit.ly/c1HEC2
Cameron defends Osborne’s budget ‘to protect the poor’ | England News
[…] Will Straw at Left Foot Forward says the budget document has exposed Tory “lies” about their tax credit […]
Jacquie Martin
j dennis_99: Tax credits are not benefits. They are a payment designed to encourage work and to make work pay. The aim is to stop/reduce the dependency on benefits.
On the bald face of it £30,000 might seem a lot of money but that doesn’t reflect individual circumstances. Deductions have not been taken into account. Nor living costs. For a couple working, there will be extra work associated costs such as travel, work clothes etc. Childcare will figure in most families’ outgoings and will be greater for a single parent household who doesn’t have extra cover. This increases dramatically if a child has SEN. And children are themselves expensive.
Reducing the incentive to work, espcially as GO made specific reference to lone parents being expected to look for work when their youngest child is aged 5, is not a good policy.
Obviously there are alternatives: increase the minimum wage, introduce a mandatory living wage, close the pay gap, force employers to allow parents to work any hours they want, provide universal free childcare. Not policies I expect to be introduced any time soon.
David Wickes: lies should be exposed, not least of all because it tells us something about character and what we can expect. The fact that the Tories lie, either together or when they’re in a coalition, is not a suprise. It is not so much a storm in a teacup as the thin end of the wedge.
Anna: the tax allowance is not relevant to the table. It’s showing income and tax credits. It’s not attempting to show net income. Most working people will benefit from the increased allowances, but families will lose that if they go above the tax credit threshold – it will cancel it out, if not wholly, then in part. They will still be worse off than they would have been if the Tories hadn’t lied.
Will: David Cameron, George Osborne, Nick Clegg, Teresa May all signed up to Gingerbread’s campaign to stop discimination of single parents by use of labels and language. GO specifically said in his speech that ‘lone parents’ would be expected to look for work when their youngest child reached 5. Not all parents. Not the absent parents. Just the lone parent. The implication being that ‘lone parents’ (who might be widowed, divorced, DV survivor) wouldn’t want to work, look for work volunarily and so are ‘benefit scroungers.’ More pre-election lies and hypocrisy.
sunny hundal
Oh look, the Tories lied about tax credits too. What a surprise: http://bit.ly/c1HEC2 (by @leftfootfwd)
Heitzman
RT @sunny_hundal: Oh look, the Tories lied about tax credits too. What a surprise: http://bit.ly/c1HEC2 (by @leftfootfwd)