Separate taxation now! For years we campaigned, and finally Nigel Lawson gave it to us in 1990. A landmark blow was struck for women; it removed (almost) the last vestiges of the notion that married women are their husbands' chattels.
I felt faintly guilty about it at the time, as this fine feminist victory handed over large sums of money to dual-earner families, most of which do not need extra help compared with poorer single-earner families. But the Tories were in power, apparently forever. Giving more to the poor was simply not on the agenda, and tax cuts for the rich were falling like silver pennies from heaven. Why, for once, shouldn't some of that money go to women?
Today, the financial squeeze is tighter than ever; but at least we have a government which would like to take more from the rich and give more to the poor-if only it could find a palatable way to do it. But this is the government of the promise-keepers, so there is no chance that income tax can be raised. Other ways of raising money must be found.
Here is a radical suggestion: women should give up separate taxation-but only in exchange for a hand-out which would do more to help all women. If we returned to joint taxation, we could raise the funds to double-yes, double-child benefit, which is paid equally to all mothers. I have never been much of a child benefit enthusiast, because so much of it is handed out indiscriminately to women like myself who do not need it. It cannot be taxed back, because although so many women now work, most are part-timers and very few are higher rate tax payers-so the money brought in is not worth the administrative hassle.
But if we had joint taxation, child benefit would be taxed back from the couple or the higher earner-almost always the man. My proposal would also provide the first step up the ladder for families getting out of social security and into work. At present a single mother-or a couple-on social security do not get child benefit; it is discounted from income support. But once one of them works, child benefit kicks in. If we doubled it to ?22.90 for the first child, and ?18.60 for each subsequent child, this would give a two-child family a ?41.50 kick-start. What is more, there would be no more awkward tapers, where you lose more benefit, the more you earn. Parents would receive child benefit forever. If better-off mothers grumble at joint taxation, at least they too would have child benefit in their pocket every week, taxed back from their husbands. And they would know that the money was doing what it was always intended to do-to help poorer families over the expensive years of childrearing.
Two-earner couples currently save more than ?1,000 through separate taxation. If you taxed them jointly, it would raise ?2 billion a year. Then there is the absurd married couples allowance, which pays people ?250 a year just for being married. Abolish that, and you can raise another ?2.5 billion. Now if, in addition to joint taxation, you also tax child benefit back from the rich, you reach the total sum required to double it for every mother in Britain.
When I float this idea I get aghast looks from my feminist friends. "It can't be done," "Women wouldn't stand for it," they say. But after talking them through the sums, some of them-with the deepest misgivings-begin to see the point. Would the government ever dare?
The Chancellor is wasting time and brain power on a completely worthless tax credit scheme which would probably mean some form of joint taxation. I would oppose that tooth and claw, because there is absolutely no benefit in it for anyone.
I doubt whether women will accept any move towards joint taxation unless the quid pro quo is really good. The doubling of child benefit would be worth it; a pointless tax credit scheme would deliver nothing to women-indeed, it would take family credit away from the 300,000 women who currently receive it, and give it to the male earner instead. Patricia Hewitt points out, in loyal support of her government, that many of these women lose it anyway after one year, when their man either falls back on to social security or earns more. But it won't look good.
If the government really wants to do more to emphasise the difference between in-work benefits, paid to the worker, and out-of-work benefits, paid to the family, this is what they should do: for couples on social security, let women collect the whole family's entitlement; and let men collect their own personal allowance. The poorest families I have ever met are not single parents on benefit, but wives and children on benefit whose husbands collect the whole whack and don't hand over enough.
The distribution of money between women and men matters-but I no longer think that joint taxation is crucial. I would not give it up lightly; but I would for a doubling of child benefit. n
Polly Toynbee
