31 January 2013

Schools kids bonus handouts in Canberra?

31 January 2013 | Soapaz

School kids bonus… Paid twice in a year to help cover the costs in sending our precious kids to school in a hope they gain a respectable education and not be on the dole system when they leave and enter the adulthood.

So, I received mine for two of my precious angels, one starting year 7 and another in year 9.
Over the past couple of weeks in receiving this generous payment, I have entered many shops… School uniforms, book packs, shoes, bags, etc…. Which I can safely say… I am so glad that’s all over now… And bring on the school year!

Nothing so far you say… Well, my confusion is….

How many parents out there actually spent this generous amount of money on their kids? I may be wrong… But in all the times spent in the required shops to fulfill the requirements of the school year… I have only seem to have met parents with kids in private education or working parents taking time out of their working day to gather all the required gear. Not one have I seen parents of a non-working background shopping for their little ones.

Scary to think where that bonus went in the last few weeks….

Again, I maybe too enclosed in my own stresses of getting everything ready for my teens to really see my full surroundings…

Now, Ms Gillard changed our educational tax refund to cater for all parents with enrolled students whether working or not and made sure that this generous amount of cash gets to all enrolled students… Said “there seem to be too much cash in the tax system that people aren’t claiming correctly or at all”…. Now, wouldnt that create alarm bells in your minds as tax payers??

Because to my understanding, claiming the educational tax refund, you require certain paperwork ie: receipts, and declaring incomes as such….

If there is cash still sitting in that educational tax pool… Then wouldn’t that mean….

2. Parents have not enrolled their kiddies as required by law and couldn’t be bothered dealing with the consequences of child protections etc.

Before, any rioters out there start back lashing my post or offer opinions… I am just stating my confusion.

(for your information…. I am a working single parent with two teen kids, more than happy to want to bring the old education tax refund back and knowing that what I invest in my children when it comes to education is helped along with justifications, rather than a straight handout from the very tax system us all working people contribute towards each and every working hour we do).

And by the way…. The $820 I received for my teens didn’t even cover everything needed for the school year…. So awaiting my next installment :p especially when uniforms alone was $568 and the rest….

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wildturkeycanoe6:16 am 02 Feb 13

YeahBuddy said :

Can we start a poll with this thread?

I used my SchoolKids Bonus to cover my kids back to school costs
I used mine to subsidise my smokes and beers
It’s none of your f*cking business how I spent it

+1, Poll me!!

Masquara5:22 pm 01 Feb 13

Watson said :

Madam Cholet said :

Firstly, I am a mother of one under-school aged child.

What is an ‘under-school’ and was I supposed to send my child there too? 😉

It’s where the underclass send their children?

schmeah5:12 pm 01 Feb 13

Masquara said :

schmeah said :

My mother cleaned houses for a living and my dad was a factory hand and I went to a private school ..

What type of private school? A Catholic school? A factory hand and cleaner wage combined couldn’t stump up for one of the elite schools.

Well thank you for your concern but no. It was a private college not associated with the catholic church. The fees back then were around $13K a year (now upwards of $20K) .. we used hand-me-down uniforms from day 1. To this day I still don’t know how they did it, I can only imagine that they re-mortgaged the house at some stage, so yeah.

poetix1:40 pm 01 Feb 13

Watson said :

Masquara said :

poetix said :

This payment does not go to ‘all parents with enrolled students whether working or not…’ You already have to be receiving some government assistance (even if that’s the Family Tax Benefit). In other words, it cuts out if your income is above a certain level. As it should.

Cuts out ridiculously high. Should be cut out altogether other than for folks on welfare welfare – not middleclass welfare …

$101,458 if you have 1 child.

If you only provide to people on newstart or a pension, you don’t need it as a separate payment. You just need to increase the payment rates for those payments.

I receive FTB A and am eternally grateful for that. What is middle class anyway? Is it anyone who has a job? Does it depend on what kind of job? Or is it based on income?

Yes, Watson, you are right. I had just glanced at the table for Family Tax Benefit A and saw a figure of $228,381, which, checking again, is the cut out rate for those with three or more children under 12. One child payment does indeed cut out at the rate you mention.

I do not think that anyone on (just below) $228,381 should get government assistance of any sort. (Except the kind we all get, such as subsidised medicines, access to schools, etc.)

The questions you raise about the definition of middle class are interesting. I am unsure at what level there should be no government assistance, except it should be well below $228 K, regardless of the number of children.

YeahBuddy1:20 pm 01 Feb 13

Can we start a poll with this thread?

I used my SchoolKids Bonus to cover my kids back to school costs
I used mine to subsidise my smokes and beers
It’s none of your f*cking business how I spent it

Watson12:45 pm 01 Feb 13

Masquara said :

poetix said :

This payment does not go to ‘all parents with enrolled students whether working or not…’ You already have to be receiving some government assistance (even if that’s the Family Tax Benefit). In other words, it cuts out if your income is above a certain level. As it should.

Cuts out ridiculously high. Should be cut out altogether other than for folks on welfare welfare – not middleclass welfare …

$101,458 if you have 1 child.

If you only provide to people on newstart or a pension, you don’t need it as a separate payment. You just need to increase the payment rates for those payments.

I receive FTB A and am eternally grateful for that. What is middle class anyway? Is it anyone who has a job? Does it depend on what kind of job? Or is it based on income?

Watson12:32 pm 01 Feb 13

Madam Cholet said :

Firstly, I am a mother of one under-school aged child.

What is an ‘under-school’ and was I supposed to send my child there too? 😉

Masquara11:15 am 01 Feb 13

schmeah said :

My mother cleaned houses for a living and my dad was a factory hand and I went to a private school ..

What type of private school? A Catholic school? A factory hand and cleaner wage combined couldn’t stump up for one of the elite schools.

schmeah9:51 am 01 Feb 13

This post is more insulting that Abbott’s address to the press club yesterday.

Honestly, can you be everywhere all the time to know what people are doing with their money? And how can you differentiate people who send their kids to private schools from others? My mother cleaned houses for a living and my dad was a factory hand and I went to a private school .. and they didn’t get hand-outs to send me there, even though the uniforms for my sister and I alone would have cost them a combined fortnightly/monthly salary. I’m totally gobsmacked by your sense of entitlement.

Your post reeks of class elitism and your effort to nullify it all by saying “I’m a single working parent” is sickening. Lots of parents out there are doing it tough use that money for school items and maybe to put food on the table as well.

If you care so much about the government coffers, hand back your cash-splash.

aidan9:20 am 01 Feb 13

Chop71 said :

I think most people would/should prefer lower taxes than a school kids hand out.

We have a tax and transfer system. The whole point is that it seeks to target transfers where they are needed.

There are plenty of giveaways for the wealthy (concessional rates on capital gains tax, superannuation and family trusts). Super is being addressed, but last year was the biggest single tax concession ($30bn)

http://www.smh.com.au/business/supers-tax-concession-blowout-comes-at-a-cost-20130131-2dnhj.html

It is worth reading these fairly short pieces by Peter Whiteford, which give some perspective on Australia’s tax & transfer system

http://theconversation.edu.au/for-richer-or-poorer-the-delicate-art-of-messing-with-middle-class-welfare-1560

http://inside.org.au/how-fair-is-australia’s-welfare-state/

The take home messages?

Australia redistributes more to the poorest fifth of the population than virtually any other OECD country

For families in paid work we have one of the lowest rates of child poverty in the OECD: the family benefit system is an essential way in which we help “make work pay”.

Australia has the most “target efficient” system of social security benefits of any OECD country. For each dollar of spending on benefits our system reduces income inequality by about 50 per cent more than the United States, Denmark or Norway, twice as much as Korea, two and a half times as much as Japan or Italy, and three times as much as France.

… in 2007, the year before the global financial crisis, Australia spent 16 per cent of GDP on cash benefits (including pensions and unemployment payments, healthcare and community services) compared to an OECD average of just over 19 per cent. We actually spent a little less than the United States and Japan, and the only countries that spent substantially less than we did were lower-income countries like Mexico, Chile, Turkey and Korea.

Australia actually has the lowest level of middle-class welfare of any OECD country, a position it has consistently held for at least the past thirty years.

Australia has the lowest level of churning of any OECD country except Korea – and Korea only has lower churning because it has very little at all in the way of welfare payments.

This is a non-issue.

watto232:53 pm 31 Jan 13

Madam Cholet said :

Firstly, I am a mother of one under-school aged child. I receive the Child Care Tax Rebate ONLY. NOTHING ELSE. We are thankfully able to get-by without any other assistance – and for this, I count us very lucky indeed. I have sincerely appreciated the Governments efforts to assist with our child-care fees – we pay about $20k a year and get back $7500. Still 12500k out of pocket – and for that I could send him to a good private school. (Cue all the ‘stay at home then’ comments). It makes much better financial sense for us to both work. If we didn’t WE’D BE POOR AS WELL.

However, most of the respondents here are forgetting that those with higher salaries are in turn payers of higher taxes. I have paid taxes in this country for 20 years, my husband for longer. Is it your right therefore to say that they should not get anything back by way of ‘services’ or ‘assistance’? Perhaps things should be more means tested with a sliding scale depending on what you earn, but the long and short of it is, is that the higher earners prop up the lower earners and those totally dependent on welfare.

Take away the ‘welfare’ from the middle classes and you create people with less disposable income – a lot of people would exit the workforce entirely, thus creating a skills shortage – and then they’d need more WELFARE. Money does make the world go round. Less money in the economy, means less money taken in taxes. Less taxes means reduced services – for all.

It’s a total fallacy that the young apprentice is paying for the rebates for the middle class. If the apprentice earned a motza and paid tonnes of tax, then yes, perhaps, but an apprentice who is taxed at a lower rate and receives subsidised education and tax breaks on setting himself up with tools etc…no.

I personally agree that the refunds should be more targeted where they can be – i.e. means tested, or with some mechanism to ensure responsibility, and I don’t understand why the OP has posted here, however it does require more thought than the usual ‘cut middle class welfare, and give it to the poor’ cries when someone raises the issue.

Its not about providing welfare, its about handing cash to people who then still cry poor. All the welfare we hand out could provide better schooling and health, reducing the burden on families to pay for these things as well.

Also welfare like the first home owners grant and childcare rebate, just drive the costs up due to an increase in demand. I grew up in a family where initially my mum stayed at home and then worked part time when we all were at school. We couldn’t have everything, but we all grew up and got jobs etc.

Whereas today the tendency is to milk the government for whatever they can get and cry foul when its not enough. I don’t mind helping people to help themselves, but i despise handing cash out to be spent however they feel like it.

Madam Cholet1:04 pm 31 Jan 13

Firstly, I am a mother of one under-school aged child. I receive the Child Care Tax Rebate ONLY. NOTHING ELSE. We are thankfully able to get-by without any other assistance – and for this, I count us very lucky indeed. I have sincerely appreciated the Governments efforts to assist with our child-care fees – we pay about $20k a year and get back $7500. Still 12500k out of pocket – and for that I could send him to a good private school. (Cue all the ‘stay at home then’ comments). It makes much better financial sense for us to both work. If we didn’t WE’D BE POOR AS WELL.

However, most of the respondents here are forgetting that those with higher salaries are in turn payers of higher taxes. I have paid taxes in this country for 20 years, my husband for longer. Is it your right therefore to say that they should not get anything back by way of ‘services’ or ‘assistance’? Perhaps things should be more means tested with a sliding scale depending on what you earn, but the long and short of it is, is that the higher earners prop up the lower earners and those totally dependent on welfare.

Take away the ‘welfare’ from the middle classes and you create people with less disposable income – a lot of people would exit the workforce entirely, thus creating a skills shortage – and then they’d need more WELFARE. Money does make the world go round. Less money in the economy, means less money taken in taxes. Less taxes means reduced services – for all.

It’s a total fallacy that the young apprentice is paying for the rebates for the middle class. If the apprentice earned a motza and paid tonnes of tax, then yes, perhaps, but an apprentice who is taxed at a lower rate and receives subsidised education and tax breaks on setting himself up with tools etc…no.

I personally agree that the refunds should be more targeted where they can be – i.e. means tested, or with some mechanism to ensure responsibility, and I don’t understand why the OP has posted here, however it does require more thought than the usual ‘cut middle class welfare, and give it to the poor’ cries when someone raises the issue.

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