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the chancellor says that couples with two children will affectivly not start paying tax till earnings of 450 per week. I dont get this as we have two children do not get much tax credit as overtime is included even though its not guarenteed. My husbands basic is 19000 but overtime makesthe money up so he is penealised for working harder so we can afford our bills.Where does the chancellor make this 450 perweek before income tax from?? as we are taxed al lot more than that most weeks he only brings home that amount.

What financial benefit from staying single?

Dual-income couples go out and buy a house together, then make a lifestyle choice to have a child, expecting me to subsidise their childcare so that they can maintain a standard of living boosted by sharing the costs of heating, furnishing their home and even on cooking and eating. Meanwhile all that initial house-purchasing power has pushed prices to insane levels making it stunningly expensive for me to buy one with just my single income.

As a single person I don't understand how you can state that its cheaper for one person to live than two. I only get 25% reduction in council tax but on mortgage, utilities, food etc its bad news being on ones todd. Married man's tax allowance, child benefits and the wife working would certainly raise my net take home.

Oh but I forgot those brave families and single parent mothers that are on the receiving end of the vast sums of tax I pay for basically my bin emptied once a fortnight and a police force to permanently invigilate that I remain below 30mph. Yes its these critical members of society to whom my money goes to to raise the next generation of British citizens, and we all know what I great job theyre doing, dont we.

Stuart, people who have kids are contributing to our future economy and their kids will be paying NI to pay for all us old folks healthcare and other services! Yes, we do enjoy having our families, but you are plainly narrow minded and cant see that we make many more sacrafices for that. You should look at the bigger picture before whinging about paying towards our childcare and instead look at the people who cant be bothered (dont mistake this for people who can't afford) to work and are paid up to £60 a week for doing nothing! At least we are contributing to the economy by going out, the people who look after our kids can earn some money which is all put back into the system. Im highly offended that you are taking the high ground over families who want to get off their bums and work for a living! You either dont plan to have kids of your own, or your warped view of the world is contributing to the fact that nobody wants to breed with you! If you do ever find yourself with children I think your opinions could change. Oh yes, and there might be a lot of folk who can afford their own childcare, but if it wasnt for people on low paid jobs your bins wouldnt be emptied, you wouldnt get treated in hospitals and your shopping wouldnt even make it to the store for you to buy. People like you who cant empathise with anyone but those in their own little world disgust me. dont judge others without looking at yourself.

Capital gains
Am I missing something? - has capital gains tax allowance doubled for married couples or has he just confirmed that you each get your own allowance i.e. a married couple get two allowances?

There is no such thing as a couples penalty. The only ones who are penalised are singletons.

On a single wage, you cannot afford to get on the property ladder (unless your extremely lucky with a £50k wage or you can rely on rich parents).

Rent, utilities, food costs are are the same for one as for two or more.

I consider myself to be lucky, at least i've hopefully got a "gold plated" civil service pension of £4k to look forward too in 30 years time!
(Probably will be scrapped knowing this govt.)

Paradoxically I agree with all the above posts. Single, employed, childfree people do pay a very high tariff indeed for their independence but the services they get from state and council are pretty minimal. After all most of the money they pay as tax goes to education, social services, defence and policing, which they either don't use or get little benefit from. Further more they are expected to save for their own pension to have any standard of living after retirement. However raising a family to a good standard is very expensive in money and effort and where families break down leads to the kind of problems that Gerry is referring to. What most people might agree on is that we should not have perverse tax incentives to single parenthood and that raising the standard of education will benefit us all whether we are parents or child free.

I totally agree with Sally! Well done - someone has finally spoken up about this stupid mindset about working families!

Penalty for marrying a foreigner

Most married couples should count themselves lucky they are only marginally disadvantaged by the tax and benefits system. My wife is Japanese, to renew her visa for two years will cost £500 (basically a £250 a year ‘marriage tax’, as foreign students &c do not have to pay this amount), this is despite the fact that she is expressly forbidden from receiving any state benefits, but has to pay income tax and national insurance like everyone else. From April this ‘Marriage Tax’ is being increased to £1000 for two years.

I feel I am being forced out of the UK because I married a foreigner.

This is to ~~~Gerry..its quite simple how single parents are better off..as are a great deal of my friends since they divorced. My husband and myself are on a joint income of £30, 000 a year that is gross so we bring home about £550.00 a week. we have double travel costs to work ie tax and fuel and insurance..two lots of food and clothing, and two people having showers etc and we do not benefit from the reduction in council tax. The government gives single parents working over 16 hours a week with children on average of about an extra 90.00 per week..combine this with any maintainance payments and the afore mentioned and you can see why low paid families feel they get nothing back for struggling together!!!!

I am a single woman trying to run a small business as a sole trader. Each year I look to the budget to do something to help me out....but no. Each year it gets harder and harder to survive.

Now Income Tax will be reduced by 2p in the pound, great but I'll loose my small benefit of 10p rate for 2k's worth of income. Then Corp tax goes up so if become a Ltd company then I am penalised.

Council Tax is astonishingly high in Edinburgh and 25% discount is nothing.

Have no kids, so do not use schools.

Have no kids so don't get credits.

Honestly, as a seriously hard working individual I am getting more and more depressed at where my money is going. It's certainly not helping me. And for those people who say our children are the future, if it's anything like those who live local to me - god help us!

I am a single woman, divorced after 30 years of marriage. I brought up 2 children and one is a student, still living with me, so I have to provide for her financially. I am 57, have worked full-time all my life and receive no financial help of any kind. Mature, single people are never mentioned, although there are millions of us and we never benefit from any government tax incentives.

I too am a single, divorced after 30 years of marriage. There was not a lot to divi up and I am finding things a struggle financially. My Council Tax is a big strain on my budget and whatever piddling economies I make on utilties, they are cancelled out by price rises all round. Thank god for savings rather than a crooked pension investment.

To Sally's comment: I never had any children. After a working life paying to help other people's education, I didn't begrudge it until the last decade. Seeing the children from schools local to me behaving so appallingly, with their shouted and screamed bad language (badly-spoken), street fighting and so on, I can't see where the money goes. How would any of the ones I see be employable, and contribute? They are more likely to be an on-going drain on the society of the day.

Hear, hear, June Gibson. I notice that in any debate about taxes and families, parents always write in accusing everyone else of selfishness and 'my children will be paying your pensions'. A good example is Sally who writes "People like you who can't empathise with anyone but those in their own little world disgust me. Don't judge others without looking at yourself".

As a non-parent myself, I am sure that there are many children out there who will grow up to be model citizens and pay their taxes and otherwise to the economy. But I fear there are growing numbers who will not.

A quick trawl through recent ´óÏó´«Ã½ articles reveals some statistics.

A 2005 study showed that 22% of 11-15 years olds had drunk alcohol in the previous week, 11% had taken drugs in the last month and 9% were regular smokers. 90% of 15 year olds had tried drinking, smoking or drugs at some point and 55% had tried within the last month.

A 2004 study into criminal behaviour of 4000 children between 12 and 15 in Edinburgh showed over 70% of the children admitted committing offences.

13.4% of children in 2004 were obese. Presumably a proportion these children will be drains on the NHS with obseity related illnesses before they have even begun to contribute towards the cost.

I didn't have time to look for statistics on anti-social behaviour but there is a lot of anecdotal stuff out there.

So please, Sally, can you practice what you preach and try see things from another's point of view? (Because I'm afraid your little rant didn't give me the impression that you were doing anything other than blindly justifying your position whilst accusing everyone else of being narrow minded).

There are those of us out there, who see increasing amounts of our salaries being taken from us in direct or indirect tax, and see alarming statistics every day to suggest that your little darlings stand a good chance not becoming the the moral upstanding citizen that you would have us believe. (I've noticed in these debates parents always say their child will be the doctors / nurses of the future, never the junkies or career criminals of tomorrow).

Many people are struggling to pay their bills and keep their heads above water, and we seem to be constantly told that we should be grateful to pay more to support what seems like a generation of overweight substance abusing children. If anyone expresses a disstenting view they are 'selfish'.

I have to go now as I'm off to volunteer at a local school, to help children whose parents are 'unable or unwilling' to help them read at home. Glad to see my taxes are being put to good use there.

lets face it , it didnt take long for the chancellors last budget to unravel. Within mins of him sitting down all of the informed journalists were saying this is a con trick.

An essentially neutral budget WAS portraid as tax reducing budget but it hit the poorest in our land.

the Govt should be ashamed and those labour back benchers who waived order papers are not so vocal now. Why are they never challenged ?

As a 22 year old who works hard and shouldn't even be thinking about having a family yet I do feel annoyed about the situation single people are left in. Families do always seem to benefit and they must remember that they chose to have children it is not something that is sprung upon them and so they shouldn't need financial help because it should be a well thought through decision. Sterilisation might be the best option for all especially seeing the rabble that parents are raising.

And if people didnt have children untill they could afford it the population would plummet within a generation!