School kids bonus scrapped??

[AnyDream]

My recall from last time was you were eligible to receive it if you were eligible at a certain date (eg, 1 Jan for payment in Jan/Feb) and the eligibility was tied to whether your child was in school during that following six month period as well as the family income at the eligibility date.

[briggsy's girl]

Much have to qualify for ftba for a child to get school kids bonus. They have to have been a student in the previous six months AND be a qualifying student on a certain date (1jan or 30jun). The only people paid for a child not in school the prev six months were those starting primary school, who got a start up payment, and for those starting high school they got paid at a higher rate.

My understanding (though I've not done a lot of research as it hasn't passed legislation yet) is that it will be totally scrapped, not reverted back to the tax system. Just gone altogether

You'll find a lot of add on payments are labelled bonuses or supplements rather than increasing standard payments to include them. Thinking here of clean energy supplements in particular. Bonuses and supplements can be altered or scrapped. Reducing payments like ftb is much harder to do... I tend to try to think that anything labelled as a bonus or supplement is going to be short term. Great if it's not, but if it is, such is life.


I reckon parents having kids in 2009 (ish) have seemed to be hit pretty full on with the cutting of these payments. Major of is have kids that didn't get the old maternity immunisation allowance at 18 months - we just got the half payment. And then they cut it before our kids were old enough for the second half of the payment. The school kids bonus will likely be ditched before our kids get it. I swear we are jinxed lol

[Trillian]

I reckon parents having kids in 2009 (ish) have seemed to be hit pretty full on with the cutting of these payments. Major of is have kids that didn't get the old maternity immunisation allowance at 18 months - we just got the half payment. And then they cut it before our kids were old enough for the second half of the payment. The school kids bonus will likely be ditched before our kids get it. I swear we are jinxed lol

I reckon the flip side of that too is that those of us with older kids aren't too worried because while it was nice, we haven't always had the payment and if it's cut, life just goes back to the way it was before and it was nice while it lasted.

[briggsy's girl]

Given where I work, I tend to not rely on anything apart from ftb. It's just that sigh moment when you realise another bonus has been missed cos your kid was born at just the wrong time