Should we tax the childless?
We have already done the opposite via the child benefit cap, so why not try it?
As usual, the Twitter liberal establishment went into overdrive over a perfectly reasonable and thoughtful piece by Paul Morland yesterday, Should we tax the childless? Did The Times encourage this with their click-baity headline which didn’t really reflect the nuance within? Perhaps. But it was not their fault that liberal Twitter’s fault misread the title.
I’m glad Mr Morland focused first on the primary concern; that is, if fertility continues to shrink. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve lain awake at night, worrying if there’s going to be any binmen or women left. It’s these jobs that if gone, will be the ones we will notice first.
Firstly, on pro-natal culture. I think a “national day to celebrate parenthood is a very good idea”. I wonder why he didn’t use the term “awareness-raising campaign”, which is my current role as a consultant for a charity. I raise awareness among young mothers about the importance of having a gluten-free diet and not drinking too much coffee during pregnancy, and last year I raised awareness by a massive 300%.
Onto the telegram from HM. I’m not sure why families should get a telegram for just a third child. As a middle child myself, it was hard enough when my little brother came along, the little shit. But still, a nice idea.
I enjoy the idea of public figures like our current Prime Minister, (I use the term current, in a similar vein to how Mr Johnson refers to his wives), leading the way “with words and actions”. He’s just the kind of man I trust to do this with all those manifesto pledges he’s seeing through.
Mr Morland also drops a clanger, he proposes tax incentives for people to have more children, and negative taxes for those who don’t have any at all (ie, taxing the childless). But, our former Chancellor George Osborne did that! Well he did the opposite of course. Via the child benefit cap, he incentivised us women to have fewer babies. It pretty much failed to reduce fertility, but that’s not the point. The point is that the liberal Twitter establishment cannot decide if they want to pay more tax for more babies, or less tax for lesser!
I don’t understand the outrage frankly. Lee Anderson MP went a few steps further when he posted an article on his Facebook page in May, arguing that families should have to justify a future child to DWP, before conception. Only when they have detailed “exactly [why] they decided to have another child, and what the child’s contribution to society would be”, would DWP then make a decision on child benefit payments.
The Times of London, frankly the entire media and Twitter class, has a thing about child benefit and rightly so. While Morland argues for a retargeting of tax credits to incentivise more children, it was not so long ago that the Times lent column inches to Civitas; who, in a pro-nanny-state re-brand, argued for parenting classes in return for child benefit payments. (Just to shake things up I presume, from their usual retro “war on drugs” stuff. I wonder if the parents in this cannabis poll had parenting classes?)
I’m sure all this endless (and consistent) child benefit chat, has nothing to do with discourse around what are deemed by the Daily Mail to be worthy and unworthy benefits. When I mean worthy, I mean things like non-domicile status, and the way in which local authorities squander millions paying landlords “non-returnable cash incentives”.
These are usually given when a local authority is unable to find a landlord to take on someone about to end up on the street. These people tend to have rather long acronyms attached to their name, but usually involved some of the following; “multi-complex-disadvantaged-severe-multiple-disadvantaged-hard-to-reach-not-engaging-freaks-scum-intentionally-homeless-drug-abusers-street-attached clients”, (or if you want another term, you can always just use, people.)
So what are the unworthy benefits? I’m guessing most of the media class, presume these to be things like child benefit, universal credit and personal independent payments. You know, the ones for people that don’t want to contribute anything.
But yes, people seem to have a thing about child benefit.
I obviously agree with both child tax incentives and parenting classes, but I am struggling to see how they might work in practice. Should there be fresh parenting classes for each child? Will families with less income (ie key workers) be able to attend these classes from Zoom? Will the classes be mandatory, including for middle class families who obviously don’t need parenting classes? Will parents get a certificate for finishing the classes and could this be signed by the Queen to save on paperwork?
Many people have been rightfully arguing that there are some ladies who don’t want kids, and fair enough – that’s their choice not to contribute to future generations, I’m sure they will understand. I couldn’t put it better than Mr Morland myself; “we all rely on there being a next generation and that everyone should contribute”. While I am a rotting corpse in my manor house being eaten by my many cats and dogs in fifty years time (optimistic), my comfort will be that I incentivised a few ladies to be a little less lonely than I chose to be.
But what about the ladies who did not choose to have kids, but tried and it didn’t quite work out? I think the “negative child benefit” will also serve them some comfort too. I can just imagine it now, they’ve been told that their hopes are at an end. She turns to her partner, he sees tears in her eyes. Suddenly she smiles.
“But darling I know it has not worked out for us, but just imagine all the money HM Treasury is going to make now! I am hopeful, they can now start printing the third child certificates on vellum, I really think that would be wonderful for these parents, who have contributed more to society than we ever will”.