What caught my eye this week.

Well so much for the adults in the room. It turns out all the grown-ups in government are on the front benches. But Corbyn’s kiddos are still pulling the strings.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves reminded me this week of college students back home to do a bit of babysitting.

At last it’s their turn to earn beer money watching Netflix! But they can’t be dealing with the actual kids so they lock them in a spare bedroom with a Nintendo Switch to amuse themselves.

Wait – is that smoke?

Spot the moment the resultant surely-terminal footage of a tearful Chancellor Rachel Reeves went viral:

Belaboured castle

Anyone who thinks this week’s bonfire of Labour’s modest welfare reforms must finally represent the low-water mark for British politics might want to book an appointment with 2029.

Because it’s now clear that sitting behind Starmer and Reeves are a cohort of leftwing MPs who don’t and won’t care how out-of-whack with they are with the mood of the nation.

Reeves always faced a thankless and perhaps impossible task. She and Starmer made it even worse by imposing fiscal constraints that won the election battle but have hamstrung the subsequent war.

Now either tax rises or more borrowing must come following this week’s events. And/or a loosening of those rules, which can only happen via the blood sacrifice substitution of a new Chancellor.

Probably all three? And neither the electorate nor the bond markets will approve.

It’s all good news for Nigel Farage and Reform. They can keep promising populist tosh to their credulous supporters, while postponing their own inevitable implosion for any future contact with our rickety reality.

Buckle up.

Counting the cost

It’s true I was never crazy for the Starmer/Reeves duo.

As I wrote after 2024’s General Election:

I’m not expecting miracles. I’m barely expecting anything.

Just not shooting ourselves in the foot for a few years would be nice.

The best hope for Labour – and more importantly the country – is that stability and sanity at the top, plus some judicious low-cost tweaks to planning and policy – might unlock capital spending and investment.

Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt had already halted a seven-year-long limbo competition that had taken the bar for standards down to historic lows. I dared to believe Labour might raise it.

However given that – near-uniquely among commentators – I remember and am not afraid to state that Brexit has permanently impaired the UK economy and is responsible for at least £40bn in missing tax revenues – pretty much the sum that all these spending battles are being fought over, though the news reports never mention it – I noted:

This time things really can only get better.

Except that unlike in the 1990s, it’s now more akin to when you come around from a heart attack and a machine is faintly beeping in the background.

…and all we’ve had since waking is hapless palliative care.

Higher taxes on business (such as Employer’s NI), strong talk but little visible results yet on planning and infrastructure, still higher spending, and leaders too fearful to name the blunder that partly put us in this hole.

Belittled Britain

I know it’s boring to be reminded of it again, but it shouldn’t be controversial.

You can’t leave a huge trading bloc that boosted Britain’s GDP for 47 years without economic harm. And you can’t expect that damage not to show up in the nation’s finances.

Well, this is it showing up.

Add to that an unfortunate succession of further costly crisis – Covid, Ukraine – and the UK never stood much of a chance.

We needed a political titan – a Thatcher, an Atlee, maybe even a Heseltine – with the vision, command, and charisma to push through evasive action commensurate with the bodyblow of leaving the EU.

At best we’ve had journeymen. At worst shysters.

Allocate those labels to suit your prejudices. We can all agree that faced with a Herculean task we’ve been short one Hercules.

There aren’t easy options. But curbing state spending was a better difficult decision from here.

At least I’d have made it a multi-generational effort. Toughening up welfare payment rules but getting rid of the unsustainable pension triple-lock as a quid pro quo for starters.

We’re on a road to nowhere

As things stand, following this latest retreat fund manager Gordon Shannon told City AM that the markets will demand tax rises to maintain fiscal stability:

“The market is requiring you to put up taxes, so you do that but then that pushes down growth more, which makes everyone a bit less happy to make investments in the UK. So more money leaves, so your borrowing requirements are higher because you’re trying to support an economy that’s now floundering.

“What do you do there? You’ve got to borrow more.”

“And that means that, you know, an awful lot of things just won’t happen, whether that’s building a new factory or employing new workers starting a business, a lot of these things won’t come through. And at the margin, that definitely means a lowering of the growth trajectory…which was already in a pretty lackluster state. So, yeah, you’re in a bit of a hell slide there.”

It means non-core taxes up again while mainstream tax thresholds are frozen for even longer. The economy paddling nowhere. And voters who feel like they’re going backwards – or who increasingly even leave the UK, if they are rich enough.

There better be something distracting to watch on Netflix…

Have a great weekend.

[continue reading…]

Perhaps the only best perk of having kids in the UK is that the state gives you free money. However since 2013, the icily-named High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) has tapered payouts for households where either partner’s income is above a certain threshold.

This income threshold is currently £60,000 a year.

Above that level Child Benefit is tapered via the HICBC at a rate of:

• 1% of the Child Benefit is repaid for every £200 of income above £60,000

At £80,000 and above the benefit has been fully withdrawn. (And no further HICBC is due).

A two-child household where one partner’s income is over £80,000 will lose £2,251.60 of Child Benefit in the 2025/2026 tax year due to the HICBC.

That’s quite a chunk of change.

What counts as income?

Your ‘net adjusted income’ determines liability for the HICBC.

Net adjusted income means money from all sources, including savings interest and dividends (outside of SIPPS and ISAs) and income from rental properties – adjusted for certain allowances.

In short: anything you’d declare to the taxman.

Your pension and the High Income Child Benefit Charge

Are you a Monevator-reading parent whose Child Benefit is going the way of sex, sleep, and skinny jeans?

Let’s see how you can keep your free money and retire richer, too.

Sadly the strategy – putting more into a pension to reduce your income – does require some near-term sacrifice.

In the original version of this post – written the day after the HICBC was announced in 2012 – I claimed…

I’m pretty sure I could drive a lawnmower through the average £60,000-earner’s verdant budget, so I don’t think that should be an obstacle for most people who put their mind to it.

Besides, this strategy enables you to keep getting free money from the taxpayer – from the likes of me.

So if you’re still complaining, stop it and start saving instead.

…but I’m much less sanguine now.

Even middle-class families are struggling to budget in today’s low-growth, high-tax economy.

Positive changes since 2024

At least the High Income Charge Benefit Charge isn’t as onerous as it was.

Up until 2024 the income threshold was £50,000 and the benefit was tapered at 1% for every £100. Depending on how many kids you had, your effective marginal tax rate (EMTR) could be 71% or more. 

However the higher £60,000 threshold and the taper rate being halved since 2024 has brought that highest EMTR down to 57% for a three-child household.

Still not great. But less ludicrous than before. 

The High Income Child Benefit Charge

Parents are paid Child Benefit at two different rates:

• £26.05 a week for the eldest or only child

• £17.25 a week for every additional child

For instance, a two-child family receives:

(£26.05 + £17.25) x 52 = £2,251.60 a year

…provided neither household partner’s income is above £60,000 a year.

Above £60,000, the benefit is progressively withdrawn via the HICBC as I outlined earlier.

Note: many people think a combined household income of over £60,000 triggers the tapering.

This is incorrect. Only one of you needs to trigger the £60,000 tripwire.

If you earn £40,000 and your partner earns £30,000, say, then your Child Benefit remains unmolested.

That’s because neither of you has an income above the £60,000 threshold – despite your household bringing in £70,000 total.

How the HICBC claws back Child Benefit on incomes over £60,000

The maths is straightforward:

• For every £200 of income over the £60,000 threshold, 1% of the benefit is withdrawn via the HICBC.

• You can still receive Child Benefit. But you’ll pay some or all of it back via the Charge.

• By £80,000, all your Child Benefit is tapered away.

• The HICBC is collected via your annual self-assessment tax return. If you don’t submit one and your income makes you liable for the HICBC, you must register with HMRC to begin filing.

• From August 2025 you’ll reportedly be able to pay the HICBC via PAYE. I’m sure there will be no delays, and that everything will run smoothly.

Note that income generated within an ISA doesn’t count towards the £60,000 threshold.

After years of frozen tax brackets and all the dividend and capital gain allowance cuts since 2012, I can’t believe many Monevator readers still have unsheltered assets that they could yet shield within an ISA.

But for the record, reducing your ‘net adjusted income’ if you claim Child Benefit is another reason to ISA-fy all you can.

Losing Child Benefit is like paying a higher marginal tax rate

Clawing back Child Benefit via the HICBC is effectively a higher marginal income tax rate on earnings between £60,000 and £80,000.

For a parent with an income between £60,000 to £80,000, their effective marginal income tax rate (EMTR) rounds to:

• 47% for one child
• 51% for two children
• 56% for three children

Your EMTR rises with more children because you are repaying more Child Benefit for every extra £1 you earn over the threshold, via that £200 taper.

Before any HICBC, you pay higher-rate tax of 40% on income between £60,000 to £80,000.

Your EMTR = 40% + (Annual Child Benefit/200)

For example, you have two children and so claim £2,251.60 in child benefit. You earn over £60,000.

EMTR = 40% + (2251.60/200) = 51%

Ouch!

Using a pension to reduce your income

To keep all the Child Benefit, both parents need to earn less than £60,000. This way your household is not liable for the High Income Child Benefit Charge.

But what if one or both of you is unfortunate enough to enjoy a higher income?

There are a few things you can do about it:

• Split up with your higher-earning partner

• Tell your boss you will work for free

• Tell your husband, wife, or whoever, that they can quit their high-paying job in return for certain non-taxable favours

• Make hefty pension contributions to reduce your taxable income

I’m guessing the final option will be the most palatable for Monevator readers. (Though as I haven’t met your spouse I can’t be sure.)

Topping-up your pension to reduce your income is the best way to keep all your Child Benefit. (That’s assuming you’re not a high high-earner, in which case it won’t work. Or if you’re certain you’ll die before you can access your pension (at age 55/57) and so be unable to spend it, in which case there’s no point.)

The method is simple:

Say you’re the sole earner in your house, and you make £65,000 a year.

Increasing your pension contributions by £5,000 a year will reduce your income to £60,000. You’ll therefore keep all your child benefit.

If yours is a two-income family and you both earn over £60,000, you’ll both need to make extra pension top-ups to take you both below the danger zone.

All this is perfectly legal. (Recall the difference between tax evasion and avoidance).

And doing so is probably worth it if you can – though not quite the slam dunk it was under the old system, with its even more punishing effective rates.

Today a higher-rate taxpayer with two kids who uses extra pension contributions to reduce his or her income enough to keep all their Child Benefit will effectively be paying just 49p for every £1 of top-up into their pension.

That’s doubling the invested money at a stroke – before even a whiff of any investment returns.

Do remember though that your pension income will eventually be subject to tax. But very probably at a lower rate than the EMTR implied by paying the High Income Child Benefit Charge.

Important: None of this is tailored advice for your circumstances and I’m not a tax adviser. Get professional advice if you need it.

Still earning too much to escape the charge?

Some people will earn too much for it to be practical to retain Child Benefit solely by increasing their pension payments.

I’m sorry for your loss.

My sympathy is limited the richer you are – as I said earlier, I don’t love paying for other people’s kids’ mini-pashminas and pony-riding classes.

But for the record, there may be other ways to further bring your income down.

You might be able to sacrifice some salary in return for certain company benefits, for example.

It might even be possible to tilt your remuneration towards very long-term share options or similar. Obviously you’ll need to do your homework, and probably take professional advice.

If you earn more than £60,000 because you have savings or investments generating income outside of an ISA or pension – and you’re more confident in your relationship than I ever would be – then you could transfer some of the income-generating assets to your lower-earning partner. (Make sure you don’t push their total income over the £60,000 threshold, obviously).

Does all this stick in the craw of some child-less readers?

Well yes. I appreciate Child Benefit wasn’t designed to boost the pensions of the middle classes. As I said, I’m just explaining what’s possible. I’m not passing moral judgement.

Also, I didn’t invent the Byzantine tax and welfare system. If I had it wouldn’t look like this. (Personal finance bloggers would get special tax reliefs. Nobody thinks of our struggles!)

Should you claim Child Benefit even if you’ll repay it via the charge?

Yes. There are associated National Insurance credits that mean it’s best to claim Child Benefit, even if you ultimately repay it or opt-out of actually receiving it.

Don’t try to illicitly avoid the High Income Child Benefit Charge

You’ll often come across people earning over the £60,000 threshold who’ll tell you they don’t pay the HICBC.

Not because they make extra pension payments to bring their income down. But simply because they don’t declare their status properly to HMRC.

This is tax avoidance. It’s illegal, which is all that really matters. But you’re also liable to get caught and fined.

Okay, it’s true the number of penalties collapsed in the final year of the Tory government. But I can’t see why our cash-strapped current administration would let people off the hook. 

You probably don’t flirt with criminality elsewhere in your life. Why do it here?

Living a £60,000-a-year lifestyle

The elephant in the room is of course that you can’t spend your pension until you’re, well, a pensioner.

Even though you’ll be quids-in one day by boosting your pension pot – thanks to your generous fellow taxpayers – you’ll need to take home enough now to keep your little darlings alive enough to qualify for their Child Benefit. Not to mention any other spending you consider essential.

You’ve no choice but to take a scythe to your budget. Only you can work out what’s dispensable and what’s non-negotiable for you.

As for your little cost centres – perhaps they could get a paper-round?

Is the High Income Child Benefit Charge unfair?

I was more militant in 2012 when I first wrote this article. Here’s my younger self, with only very light edits:

I’m the first to agree the benefits system is bloated, and that we’d do better tackling income inequality through an overhaul of the tax system – as opposed to politicians bribing us with our own money through welfare payments, tax perks, and other kickbacks.

On the other hand, you’re my dear readers, and many of you stand to lose your child benefit next year […]

Now, we could debate the politics of welfare all day. (Let alone the ethics of having three children).

Supporters of universal child benefit argue that an income of £60,000 isn’t any great shakes, especially in the South East.

Buying a house with room for a kid or two is already a Herculean feat for anyone down here without a rich benefactor. (Say a parent, a lottery win, a bank bonus, or a mortally-challenged grandparent).

And do we really want a society where only the poor can afford to have kids?

On the other hand, London property prices are just as high for us childless singletons – yet we don’t get a handout from the public purse.

Moreover I see people wasting money all day long – especially middle-class parents.

Slightly more tongue-in-cheek… perhaps I need to secure my financial future even more than a parent does. Why? Because there will be no spare room in my daughter’s house in my wrinkly decrepitude.

So why should my taxes pay for someone’s £1,145 Bugaboo Fox 5 all-terrain stroller?

In our over-crowded world, I’m also sceptical that parents are bringing up future taxpayers on my behalf.

That’s the economics of a Ponzi scheme – and one ill-suited to a planet with limited resources.

Ah, the easy certainty of Angry Young-ish Man.

I update the Bugaboo link and price in that excerpt, incidentally. Apparently the hilariously bougie ‘Bugaboo Lambskin Footmuff’ has been discontinued.

Who knows how many were (effectively) bought with Child Benefit?1

Investing for the child’s benefit

In the years since 2012, it’s transpired that some savvy parents who receive but don’t need to spend Child Benefit – surely a dwindling number, given the cost of living crisis – often stash the payments into a Junior ISA.

I applaud that as the Monevator editor. But as a taxpayer I have ‘questions’.

Oh well, we all have our views on all this stuff.

Today’s more milder me just hopes the pension workaround will help those readers who need it.

Home economics by Kafka

If you’ve ever wondered why our tax system is so unfathomable, the High Income Child Benefit Charge provides a perfect case study.

A silly system was modified with an even sillier system, at great expense and hassle for everyone – including HMRC – and despite it producing ‘cliff edges’ of unfairness.

The jammiest couples who follow this pension top-up strategy are working parents earning, say, £61,000 each.

If they both do £1,000 in extra pension payments they’ll keep all their Child Benefit – and retire richer. This despite them still having a household income of £120,000 a year.

In contrast, consider a sole earner in London on £80,000 with a full-time child-rearing spouse.

This breadwinner can’t afford to reduce their income by £20,000. Mortgage and energy costs have skyrocketed. And nearly two-fifths of their income is now taxed at the higher-rate, thanks to frozen tax brackets.

Such a parent will lose all their Child Benefit. Even though their household lives on £40,000 less pre-tax than the previous couple.

If you wanted a policy to encourage both parents to work full-time, you could do worse. I doubt that was the idea.

Remember this the next time a politician talks about being ‘fair’.

Everyone is at it in 2025

Back in 2012, Monevator was one of the first non-accounting websites to talk about making pension contributions to lower your earnings below a certain threshold, to reduce your effective marginal tax rate.

Obviously the concept wasn’t new. But most middle-class people didn’t think about it.

How different from today.

Millions more now pay higher-rate tax, household budgets are bloated with inflationary pressures, and a sluggish economy means nearly everyone is watching their pennies.

Trying to find an edge in the tax system is no longer a hobby for financial nerds. It’s a necessity for everyone.

This article on the High Income Child Benefit Charge was updated in July 2025. Comments below may refer to the previous regime with a different income threshold and taper rate. Please check the comment date if unsure.

1. Probably none, but a boy can dream, or rather shake his fist/head… [↩]

Attention UK investors! Remember our massive broker comparison table? Well, we’ve rolled up our sleeves and updated it again to help you find the best online broker for you.

Cutting the lawn with nail scissors would have been less tedious. But it would not have produced a quick and easy overview of all the main execution-only investment services.

Investment platforms, stock brokers, call ’em what you will… we’ve stripped ’em down to their undies for you to eyeball over a cup of tea and your favourite tranquillisers.

What’s changed with this update?

Zero-fee platform Lightyear is in. It’s getting good reviews on Trustpilot. 

Chip has made the cut too. Have a shufty if you want an app that smites analysis paralysis by offering you simply ‘the best of three’ funds. 

Meanwhile table stalwarts X-O and Sharedeal Active are out. They’ve been hoovered up by Interactive Investor in its seemingly relentless quest for flat-fee broker dominance. 

Who’s the best broker?

It’s impossible to say. There are too many subtle differences in the offers. The UK’s brokers occupy more niches than the mammal family. And while I know which one is best for me, I can’t know which one is right for you.

What we have done is laser focus the comparison onto the most important factor in play: cost.

An execution-only broker is not on this Earth to hold anyone’s hand.

Yes, we want their websites to work. We’d prefer them to not screw us over, go bust, or send us to the seventh circle of call centre hell. These things we take for granted.

So customer service metrics are not included in this table. It’s purely a bare-knuckle contest of brute cost for services rendered.

On that basis we’ve updated our ‘Good for’ column as below.

^{Disclosure: Links to platforms may be affiliate links, where we may earn a small commission. It doesn’t affect the price you pay nor how we judge the brokers. This article and the comparison table are not personal financial advice. Your capital is at risk when you invest.}

Beginners

• InvestEngine for ETFs. (Alternatively: Lightyear and Trading 212)
• Prosper for funds (also has a sprinkle of ETFs)

These are zero-fee brokers. It’s always worth looking at a zero-fee broker’s ‘How we make money’ page because – rest assured – they will be earning a buck, one way or another.

Just search that topic on their websites.

If zero-fee brokers make you feel queasy then stay under the FSCS £85,000 investor compensation limit or use a broker that charges fees directly. You’ll find some very competitive offers in our table. 

Beginners who prefer direct fees

• Dodl for funds. (Alternatively: Trinity Bridge, Fidelity, plus Lloyds for SIPPs)

Established investors with portfolios worth £85,000+ / prefer to pay direct fees

• Freetrade for ETFs. (Alternatively: Halifax/iWeb. SIPPs: Interactive Investor, Fidelity, AJ Bell)
• Lloyds for funds. (Alternatively: Vanguard. iWeb if you hardly ever trade. SIPPs: Interactive Investor. N.B. Lloyds, iWeb and Halifax are the same firm for FSCS protection purposes.)

The best choice for you depends on how often you trade, the value of your accounts, plus your personal priorities around customer service, family accounts, flexible ISAs, multi-currency accounts and so on.

Our ‘Good for’ choices are purely cost-based. We assume 12 buy and four sell trades per year. 

Using the full table

We divide the major UK brokers into four camps:

• Flat-fee brokers – these charge one price for platform services, regardless of the size of your assets. In other words, they might charge you £100 per year, whether your portfolio is worth £1,000 or £1 million. Generally, if you’ve got a large portfolio then you definitely want to look here. Bear in mind that fixed fee doesn’t mean you won’t also be tapped up for dealing monies and a laundry list of other charges.

• Percentage-fee brokers – this is where the wealthy need to be careful. These guys charge a percentage of your assets, say 0.3% per year. For a portfolio of £1,000 this would amount to a fee of £3 – but on £1 million you’d be paying £3,000. Small investors should generally use percentage-fee brokers. However even surprisingly moderate rollers are better off with fixed fees. Many percentage-fee brokers offer fee caps and tiered charges to limit the damage.

• Zero-fee brokers – these fresh upstarts apparently don’t charge you at all. Their marketing departments have it easy, simply pointing to £0 account charges and trading fees costing diddly squat. So why don’t these firms go bankrupt? Because they make up the difference using other methods. Revenue streams can include higher spreads, no interest on cash, and cross-selling more profitable services.

• Trading platforms – brokerages that suit active investors who want to deal mostly in shares and more exotic securities besides. Think of noob-unfriendly sites like Interactive Brokers, Degiro, and friends. 

Our table looks complex. But choosing the right broker needn’t be any more painful than checking it offers the investments you want and running a few numbers on your portfolio.

Help us find the best online broker for all of you

Our table’s ongoing vitality relies on crowd-sourcing.

We review the whole thing roughly every three months. But it can be kept permanently up-to-date if you contact us or leave a comment every time you find an inaccuracy, fresh information, or a platform you think should be added.

Thanks to your efforts as much as ours, our broker comparison table has become an invaluable resource for UK investors looking to find the best online broker.

Take it steady,

The Accumulator