Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending the High Income Child Benefit Charge to allow it to reflect total household income instead of individual income for families who choose to provide this information to HMRC.

The Government is not currently considering options to charge the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) on a household basis for certain claimants, who choose to submit household income information to HMRC. This would require HMRC to operate two parallel income thresholds for those liable, which would entail a significant operational burden for HMRC, and would not ensure consistency and fairness among taxpayers.

The UK has a system of independent taxation where every individual, including each partner in a couple, is treated equally within the income tax system and has their own personal allowance and set of rate bands which they can set against their own income. It is a fundamental principle of independent taxation that the individual incomes are taxed separately, and this ensures independence and privacy in their tax affairs. The Government therefore considers it appropriate to charge HICBC on an individual basis, in line with other income tax policy.