Don’t penalise parents

TO many young families, a household income of £50,000 doesn’t feel like a lot.

not after you’ve put food on the table, paid the mortgage, filled the car and had your account pillaged for energy and broadband bills.

yet, as money mail reveals today, hard-working parents who rely on that salary from a sole breadwinner face harsh fines of up to £2,000 for incorrectly claiming child benefit.

nobody is disputing that families should give back the money they owe.

The Government decided in 2013 that families where at least one person earns more than £50,000 should have their child benefit entitlement curtailed (oddly, it let families with two earners on £49,000 — a household income of £98,000 — claim the full handout).

But the way HmRC is chasing these debts is out of line on two counts. First, the taxman hands out the full child benefit to all registered parents and asks them to return anything they’re not entitled to.

That shockingly blasé policy is a recipe for disaster. Parents such as 41-year- old Fraser swainston — whose company car was deemed to take his pay above £50,000 — don’t know whether they’re coming or going. Is it any wonder they’re failing to fill out the tax returns that HmRC relies on to flag up its own overpayments?

yet rather than recognising its failings, the mean-spirited taxman is hitting parents with penalties for the crime of accepting money officials willingly handed out.

secondly, HmRC staff seem to be taking years to identify those who owe cash. Then, out of the blue, the taxman is branding parents benefits cheats — and demanding they immediately repay cash they spent on their children four years ago.

What really gets my goat is that while HmRC attacks parents who can’t afford expensive accountants, it’s failing to collect £5.2 billion from tax dodgers and £9.7 billion from companies that spend thousands exploiting tax loopholes.

It’s time HmRC went after the real villains: big business and the rich and famous who use every trick in the book to rob Britain of money for schools and hospitals.

Families who inadvertently accept too much child benefit should be asked to return the cash, penalty-free, over the same period it took HmRC to discover the debt. Fair’s fair, after all.

Stealth taxes

TaLKInG of the squeezed middle, the Chancellor needs to get a handle on income tax.

Thanks in no small part to George Osborne freezing tax bands year after year, 1.5 million workers have been dragged into the top brackets (40p or 45p in the pound) in five years.

The proportion paying tax at higher rates has doubled in two decades. at this rate, the entire country will be turned into 40p taxpayers by stealth.

If that’s the Government’s goal it should spell this out openly.

If not, a hefty hike to the 40p tax threshold, which rises to £46,350 on Friday, is long overdue.

Fiery feedback

THE reaction to our story on the family denied an insurance payout for their fire-ravaged home speaks volumes. Experts and readers have branded ageas irrational and unfair for denying a payout over a dispute about the number of bedrooms in the property.

not only did its policy cover more than the £460,000 claim, the fire had nothing to do with the disputed ‘rooms’ in the loft.

In the past, self-promoting ageas boss andy Watson has proclaimed: ‘If we struggle to treat customers fairly, then we have a problem.’

Well, mr Watson, you have one. now do the right thing and help the Weldins rebuild their life.

Car hire swindle

In auGusT last year money mail called on the Competition and markets authority to crack down on car hire rip-offs.

We submitted a dossier to the watchdog containing more than 300 complaints from readers who’d been swindled in Europe.

at the time, the Cma claimed all it could do was ask the spanish regulator to investigate.

Eight months on, the Cma has finally shown its teeth. It says if it receives proof that hidden charges aren’t being made clear when you book a car, it will take action. send your evidence to carhire@daily

mail.co.uk and we’ll pass it on.