http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11464300
Child benefit to be scrapped for higher taxpayers
George Osborne: "When we're asking so much of so many people across society I think it is a fair measure"
Child benefit is to be axed for higher rate taxpayers from 2013, Chancellor George Osborne has announced.
Ahead of his appearance at the Conservative Party conference he told the BBC the move would save about £1bn.
"It's a big decision for us, but we think it's absolutely necessary and fair given the financial situation we face," he said.
Any couples where one parent earns about £44,000 - roughly the 40% tax level - and above will be affected.
Universal benefit
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Currently child benefit is paid to all families with children, costing about £12bn a year.
Ministers estimate the change will affect about 1.2 million families - 15% of the total number.
Mr Osborne said: "It's very hard to justify taxing people on much lower incomes in order to pay the child benefit to some of the better off in our society."
He confirmed the cut would hit homes with a single or two high earners. But families with two parents on incomes up to £44,000 - which might add up together to over £80,000 - will keep the benefit.
He defended this by saying his plan was "the most straightforward" option - which avoided means testing.
The coalition say big reductions in expenditure are needed in nearly all areas of government, including to benefits payments, if it is to bring down the budget deficit and secure the long-term health of the economy.
Labour argue that the proposed cuts risk hurting the most vulnerable and increasing hardship.
Mr Osborne said he expected the public to accept that it was not fair to tax someone earning £18,000 a year to pay child benefit to someone earning £50,000.
'In it together'
"It's not a decision we've taken lightly, but given the scale of the debts Labour's left us with, and given they've left us with no plan and we've had to come up with proposals, we think this is fair.
"It means we're all in this together. Each part of society is going to be making a contribution"
At the moment, parents are paid £20.30 a week for the eldest child and £13.40 for subsequent children, with payments continuing until the age of 19 for those in full-time education.
The chancellor insisted this was a "one-off" measure and did not mark the end of the principle of universal benefits which have underpinned the welfare state for decades.
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If child benefit has to be cut, and we regret that it has to be, it should be done on the basis of incomeâ€
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Martin Narey,
Chief Executive, Barnardos
Under the proposed changes, a family where both parents are earning just under £44,000 will continue to receive child benefit while a family where only one person is working and whose income is just above £44,000 will lose the payment.
Asked whether this was an anomaly in the proposal, Mr Osborne said the alternative was to introduce a "complex" system of means testing where all households had their incomes assessed.
People will be expected to declare on their tax returns whether they fall within the 40% and 50% tax brackets and the money will then be clawed back through the tax system.
However, Mr Osborne urged top-rate taxpayers to stop claiming child benefit altogether, saying this would be the "most sensible" thing to do.
Ministers have said about 6.6 million families will be unaffected by the measure.
'Catastrophic'
But BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the move amounted to a middle-class tax rise that would directly hit most delegates at the Conservative conference.
He said that this reflected the contradiction that, while the party was delighted to be back in government, it was having to come to terms with the reality of the painful decisions facing the country if it was to meet its objective of eliminating the structural deficit within five years.
Mr Osborne announced in June's Budget that child benefit would be frozen for three years.
Martin Narey, chief executive of Barnardos, said the charity "bitterly regretted" that child benefit would be cut but it understood the government could not ignore the expenditure.
"If child benefit has to be cut, and we regret that it has to be, it should be done on the basis of income. People who earn more money should lose child benefit," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
However, he added cutting benefits for older children could be "catastrophic".
"There are already many families living in poverty where dad and mum are in full-time work, they have teenage children, very many of them still a long way from a reasonable living standard.
"To take away child benefit from them just because their kids are 14 to 15, would be foolish and very damaging. It would certainly plunge many more families into poverty."
