VAT on private health

I pay tax on my private healthcare as it is done via an insurance policy through work. It’s not VAT as you can’t charge VAT on insurance but you pay IPT instead. The companies themselves also pay tax on their earnings.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/young-go-private-amid-frustration-at-nhs-care-d2mps5gv3

This may be of interest to some on this thread. It’s based on a survey. It shows a generational shift in attitudes and use of private health care with 40% of young people paying for a private GP. Your attitude and experience to private medicine may vary by region. In London private GPs and private A&E for minor procedures are abundant and available at times which fit in with busy working lives.

Maybe they could put VAT on income tax that would boost the coffers. Before you say that’s ridiculous and you can’t tax tax, they already do with petrol.

Yes. Healthcare is a delicate ecosystem that has built up over many years and the NHS is interwoven with private system. You disrupt that at your peril - look at the problems the govt has had with Drs pensions when they imposed a cap; those snr Drs reduced their hours/retired. How did that benefit the NHS? There is plenty of evidence that Drs are highly mobile and will move abroad if pay/conditions are not satisfactory. You can’t handwave that away and say but it’s not fair. There aren’t enough Drs as it is, we need to value those we have!

On your last point, it will be interesting to see how much VAT is actually collected on school fees. The analysis that Labour is relying on for their figures makes a lot of assumptions. One is that those parents who do switch to the state sector will spend their £20k on VATable luxury goods (holidays, cars etc) so they will still get the VAT. It’s highly likely that at least some will pay down their mortgage, add to their pension or stick the money in an ISA which will raise zero VAT. Labour’s done a “back-of-a-fag-packet” calculation. A lot of their supporters want to ban private schools altogether - like people on here are saying they want to ban private healthcare. Why do you think they didn’t propose that? Because it will cost the taxpayer a fortune! All those socialist “principles” cost a lot of other people’s money.

I don’t believe for a minute that Sir Keir wld forgo private care for a family member if they were in extreme pain. He may not have used it, but when he was DPP, he may have had BUPA as part of his package. That wouldn’t be unusual at a snr level in the public sector - police chiefs have it. Has he/someone in his family never paid for private physio, private dental care, a private room in a hospital? Wld we expect our PM to be in a public ward in a hospital with his (armed) security?

If we have no private hospitals there will probably be a drop in tax income. Gov benefits from tax income from following sources from a private hospital:
If paid by employer employee pays BIK tax emploer pays Class 1 A on BIK
The docs, nurses and staff employed all pay tax on income earnt in private hospital
The private hospital pays tax on its profits (alot of private schools don't make a great profit so don't pay much tax)
All this probably adds up to more tax which could be lost if hospitals closed.
On top of this gov benefits from private hospitals often providing over flow care for NHS without nhs taking on the full costs involved and getting that over flow quicker than building a hospital (a lot of private beds got used in covid as overflow)

Along with this is docs couldn't earn more by doing private work they would probably leave country and thus leave nhs in an even worse state.

It's not always as simple as slapping 20% VAT on something and you are 20% up in income.

I did that.

The service was amazing. They were so kind, efficient and nice.

We named our daughter for the IVF co-ordinator 😀. She was so lovely.

This is going to be what happens if we demonise people who use private healthcare in this country.

www.nordorthopaedics.com/en/

It's already happened with IVF.

I'm afraid nothing can pay for the fact that people don't take responsibility for themselves. No amount of money or vat will solve this problem or be enough,

All this stuff and hand wringing about children having to have their teeth out. We all know why this is - parents feeding them sugar and sugary drinks and not teaching and enforcing teeth brushing.

Abs Labour want me to pay more tax for these feckless parents and they want the poor overworked teachers to do a parents job (after they've wiped their bums obviously because that's also now not a parents responsibility as it's just tooooo hard).

Sick of this bullshit.

But they are happy to charge VAT to people whose children have unmanaged SEN/are being bullied to the point of school refusal and move to private schools because they can't get a decent (even basic appropriate and safe) service in state schools...

We need to focus on improving NHS provision and state education, not punishing those who are falling through the cracks because of the chronic underfunding of the NHS and the state education system.

Very well said.

Are you planning to magic these dentists up out of thin air?

But it’s exactly the same as turning people with cancer away or never treating them at all because the list is too long?

I entirely agree OP. VAT on private healthcare should be imposed. I would for now exclude dentistry as it is impossible to get an NHS dentist in large swathes of the country. But once they recruit more dentists to training (whic they are singularly failing to do) the government should also ensure all private dentistry services are variable too

VAT doesn’t have to be 20%. Government could impose a reduced rate of course.

I bet they would much prefer that things like pay rises, which probably would have been agreed at lower rate than wanted had been sorted before they come to power. Now it will be down to them, and there will be complaints, strikes etc because no funding to pay the rate people want. I bet they were hoping the Tories would get that flack. I wouldn't want that to be one of the first things on my to do list. People have a high expectations that things will be different but there isn't enough money to make big differences

Um I think the Tories have given us countless examples of cabinets and PMS not ready or even fit for service. I think labour are far more ready and better equipped .

Why would they be stunned. They know how unpopular the Tories are and are far morning tough with real life . Why be on earth would you be worried about labour and not the Tories who literally have nobody left fit to govern.

Does he? He’s a bright man who has had several stressful jobs and several years to plan for this. He just looks like somebody who doesn’t want to count his chickens and is fighting for every vote. Sunac on the other hand looks like somebody who couldn’t give a shit just blindly grasping at straws without even bothering to hide his own arrogance and privilege.