[user104658]

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed

Your note about low unemployment is right. The problem is, when you get rid of one full time job and replace it with four part time zero hour contract positions, those staff are unlikely to pay tax (and of course, tax is what gives the government revenue) but three more people are employed so it looks good on the Tory employment statistics!

I've never actually thought about that one before but you're totally right .

One employee working 40 hours earning £22k will pay a nice chunk of tax on that £22k. Two employees working 20 hours earning £11k each will pay zero tax.

I've thought about it from the taxpayer perspective before, as it's likely that my youngest will need "full time parenting" (at least one of us to be home at all times) for a long time, if not forever. However because of how tax works, if we were to end up with similar incomes, it would make more financial sense for both of us to work part-time on opposite days than for one of us to work full time and one to be full time carer. Simply because both of us working part time would pay far less tax than one working full time. The exact same combined salary = a significant amount more in take-home pay.