Mrs McGowan – my Mum of the year!

It’s mother’s day. I’ve just got over Valentines and International Women’s Day. All my days!

My Mum is still around but she doesn’t like being talked about on my blog. I of course lover her to bits and she’s in my thoughts as I tap away. But this is a blog about mothers and as well as running all kinds of things – from marathons to businesses, Mums manage households.

Households have been in the news this week as the Chancellor has returned to the idea of providing (child) benefits based on “household income”. Household income isn’t much assessed (it pays an important part of the assessment of pension credit), but Government has precious little data on household income. The Office of National Statistics can tell Government at a macro level what we have by way of household income, but they can’t tell Government who has got what.

So will HMRC start collecting individual household income , so that Government can assess us for taxation purposes on how our household earns, saves and invests? To some extent, it does but it’s a voluntary item; our tax returns ask us to decide which partner gets what allowance and there’s a little jiggery pokery that couples can use to their benefit. But there is not yet a way to tax household income (rather than the income of those in the households).

I think that taxing households is progressive and it would be particularly helpful to women who bear the brunt of household duties. The first that husbands know of how hard it is to run a household is when they get divorced, when they find themselves having to manage for themselves. This has happened twice to me and as my partner of 25 years reminds me, it’s not something that’s going to happen a third time!

When a man divorces, he may have to pay for the services he got from his partner and this is particularly the case if his partner has sacrificed her job opportunity to be a Mum. The value of this sacrifice can come as quite a shock to a man, especially when Mum has a good lawyer. A man also has to face up to the fact that his pension is there to support the household and if that household is split up, then so should the pension.

Sadly, too often, wives don’t assert the right to get retrospective reward for their sacrifice and so end up without the reward for their sacrifice. Moving to a system of household taxation might formalise the role of “house-wife” and indeed “mother”. If it were to, then mother’s day would be treated with the economic significance of “international women’s day” and we  would be moving faster towards properly valuing the house work.

The economic value of motherhood is of course much wider than its household value. Lest we forget, the future productivity and the future pensions of Britain are dependent to a large degree on procreativity and that does not happen without women conceiving and delivering children. Motherhood is an essential to our economic development and the benefit of children is rather underestimated by child benefit – both to the household and to the wider economy!

The improved system of child benefit announced in the budget was a welcome mother’s day present to Mums and to many middle class households. It is not just fathers  who are prone to underestimating their partners!

So giving Mums a day of recognition is inadequate, they deserve proper recognition every day – that means  full reward for what they do, as household CEO!