Scrapping VAT and removing charitable schools - Labour policy - do you agree with it ?

[I'm With Stupid]

Believe me, as someone who went to a Secondary Modern School, we were cannon fodder who’s sole intention was to provide an ample supply of labour to do the jobs the private and grammar school parents didn’t want their kids to do.
Low achievement was expected and delivered.
Perhaps the Comprehensive system has moved the goal posts a little but I would take the private system over the State system any day of the week.
So what if the parents throw money at their kids in the real world it’s dog eat dog.
If a few of the kids in the private schools are thick they will still end up with a better overall education than had they gone to a State School as they will be pushed to perform to the best of their ability so the parents can say they have given them the best overall start in life..
They will still end up with better jobs than had they been in the State system

It's interesting though, because I remember reading about a study in America into the Ivy League universities. They found that for lower-income people, they were a huge benefit (compared to a normal university) because of the connections they were able to make. But for the already wealthy, they basically made fuck all difference to their prospects because they already had all of the connections and wealthy background to make sure that they'll basically be guaranteed a life of luxury. For the extremely wealthy, an Ivy League degree is basically a status symbol like a Chanel bag or a Mercedes car.

I imagine something similar is true of the likes of Eton or even Oxford University. Oxbridge love to get toffs in because they know they're already guaranteed a successful career and that will reflect well on the university, even though they were always likely to have a high-profile career because of daddy's connections.

 

[hilts]

I completely agree I just don't think they should be getting a tax break.

I don't doubt that not everyone who sends their children to private school is rich but according to the ONS the median household income (after direct taxation) in this country pre COVID was £30k. The average annual cost of a private school is approx £15k. That suggests to me this is not a realistic option for a significant proportion of the population.

I don't think this tax break has any substantive value in terms of social mobility's it's simply a competitive advantage for the middle classes and upwards who already have the dice loaded in their favour. I say that as someone who would qualify as middle class.

Sending a kid to private school does show a good amount of wealth imho. It does depend on what one classes wealthy as though.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Sending a kid to private school does show a good amount of wealth imho. It does depend on what one classes wealthy as though.

Well yeah, but you always get someone who comes along and says 'We didn't go on holiday for 10 years to pay for our kid's private school.' And you think, 'how expensive do you think holidays are?' I dunno about you, but I've never paid 10 grand for a holiday.

 

[Kompany Car]

I am fortunate/unfortunate, depending on how it’s looked at to fall in to a band H.
It’s a very crude way of defining wealth and penalises those who chose to put their money in to their home rather than other assets.
There are many properties that have been re developed, extended etc that still have their original banding but are now worth double other properties in the same banding.

All the more reason to reassess them then. For reference im also band H but the difference between band H and band D nowhere near reflects property value.

 

[hilts]

Well yeah, but you always get someone who comes along and says 'We didn't go on holiday for 10 years to pay for our kid's private school.' And you think, 'how expensive do you think holidays are?' I dunno about you, but I've never paid 10 grand for a holiday.

Yeah it's people who are doing well but don't want to advertise it for whatever reason.

 

[meltonblue]

Well the main argument in this case should really be whether education should be subject to VAT in general. The current situation is that anything that is a 'school subject' isn't subject to VAT either in terms of extra private tuition or actually attending a private school. This would also include, for example, a summer school where foreigners come over to learn English. It would also include the materials for those courses, or online courses such as the open university. It also includes most vocational courses, but I believe that certain corporate training courses are subject to VAT.

So the question would be whether you are going to add VAT onto things like summer schools as well. Because obviously it's one thing to say that these schools are clearly a business and should pay the same business rates as any other business, but it doesn't mean that the product they're selling should be subject to VAT. We do currently have a general principle that core educational products aren't subject to VAT. I don't think Tesco should be considered a charity, but that doesn't mean they should be forced to add VAT to their bread. But the question is whether private education is considered a luxury, and if so, which private education. Is your kid's Montessori nursery a luxury? Should that be slapped with an extra 20%?

I don’t think that argument is currently being made or discussed by anyone though? I thought it was that they wanted to make independent schools exempt from the existing legislation (and I think nurseries fall under childcare rather than education don’t they?)

I agree with some of the sentiment there though in that within those independent schools, there are niche areas that have no alternative in the state sector and I do think the policy would need fleshing out a fair bit. Long way away from that though.

 

[meltonblue]

It’s a good point though, how do you legislate to charge VAT on school fees but not on uni fees? Both are private education institutions are they not? Any attempts to distinguish between the two will likely end up with a lot of legal challenges.

You just keep universities as eligible bodies.

 

[bluenova]

Given ~9% are on some level of bursary a drop out rate of 3-7% is woefully optimistic.

More likely 15%. ~85,000 kids, £7k a year to educate in state school = £600m, VAT tax take on school fees will be £1.3bn, like I said they’ll be lucky to net get half the money.

Those in private education are currently “saving” the state education system nearly £4bn a year by attending private school.

Why? Your suggestion is that everyone receiving any kind of bursary (and bear in mind that it's less than 1% who get all their fees paid) plus a good chunk of those paying full fees, will drop out.

The history of price rises in the sector, and the minimal effect they've had on numbers, suggests that there is no way 15% would drop out. I'd be willing to bet in that one :)

 

[metalblue]

Well yeah, I'm not a big fan of private schooling, but I'd rather they just focus on improving the public sector schooling first. If they want to raise more money to pay for it, how about starting by bringing shit like capital gains tax up to the same level as income tax? I don't see why someone going to work 40 hours-a-week pays a higher rate of tax than someone who has effectively just invested some of their already very disposable income.

INHO best change we can make is to split kids in to vocational and academic streams at age 13. If you employed 6 people per secondary school to teach trades (electricians, plumbers, welders, etc and English was about writing business letters and quotes, math about managing taxes and pricing up work etc) it would cost about £1bn to do this for every school in the UK, if 25,000 left school each year with a trade under their belt and worked until they were 65, never earned more than £20k a year (assuming inflation wage increases keep them on the same relative money) they’d be paying over £3bn in income taxes. That’s a fantastic return on investment.

Those kids will probably enjoy school a bit more and not be fucking around in the English lit class because they’ve got zero interest in reading poems by Keats. That results in better learning environments for those who want to be more academic -with better outcomes.

Then tell us how much more tax we need to pay for getting class sizes down to something sensible and we’re probably breaking the back of the problem.

 

[halfmist]

Yeah it's people who are doing well but don't want to advertise it for whatever reason.

Perhaps because of this