Is Bridget Phillipson's tweet accurate?

Do you actually have any knowledge of the education sector and the role of indy schools or are you just parroting Labour?

It's a shame the richest in society expect those of us on minimum wage to pick up their slack though

Let’s not pretend that the richest don’t already pay a huge amount.

“It is important to remember that the top 5% of taxpayers are projected to pay nearly half of all income tax in 2023-24; and the top 1% as much as 28%”

hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2023-11-14/debates/AA59871F-4E6F-420F-B106-98026F0F29B9/WealthTax#:~:text=It%20is%20important%20to%20remember,%25%20as%20much%20as%2028%25.

Most people pay their way with their tax. You currently aren't making much of a contribution to society and that's fine. But I think always good to appreciate the people who are making the largest contribution (ie the richest in society). Have a look at the statistics of who pays the most tax.

Remember, according to socialists, your money is not your own anyway. It belongs to the state and they decide how much of it you can keep and then try and control what and who you can spend that money on. Not very inspiring.

By contrast conservatives believe that the money you earn is your own and they just decide how much to take in tax and the rest is yours.

Then do. I'm very comfortable with the amount of tax we pay because in addition to paying it I don't ask the state to pay for educating my child or looking after our health. We pay extra to pay for ourselves. That isn't good enough though is it? We should be penalised for taking responsibility for looking after ourselves and not relying on the state.
Socialists want everyone relying on the state and the state can then decide what you can/can't have. Everyone is equal = everyone has fuck all and the state has everything + makes every decision about people's lives ie where and how they live/work/go to school/shop etc.

It already is. It’s not limited to a single LEA.

They then spend more money (and therefore pay VAT), or they save it and pay tax on the interest. Win win.

I think your maths has gone awry. Let’s assume a parent spends £20k on school fees. That’s £4K in VAT. They then switch to state, and put £20k into savings instead. Interest on those savings is around £1k at a rate of 5%. Let’s assume they don’t put it in an ISA and therefore pay no tax. The most any taxpayer will pay on that interest is £450. So that’s £3,550 less than the VAT which would have been payable. How is that a win win? Plus it’s now costing the tax payer £8k to educate their child. It’s precisely why the IFS assumptions are wrong. Because of a lack of understanding of simple maths.

You’re also assuming that any money spent will be on items subject to VAT. It won’t necessarily. Foreign holidays are subject to no VAT.

It is shocking that 60% of working age adults pay no tax so don't contribute to the services they use. That simply isn't sustainable economically especially if you want improvements to state services.
40% of working age adults pay to support 100% of population

@twistyizzy again. Yes. If it improves our public services I am happy to pay more tax.

So as a taxpayer you would be happy paying more in order to enable that to happen? Most LEAs are broke so unless the government give them more money they can't afford to do that. Even taking out a "surplus" the fess are still way more than £7K that government currently funds. I mean if you're going down that route then why wouldn't the government just increase funding per pupil in state school to 12K? That should do it nicely.
The reason? Joe Public don't want to pay more tax to make that happen so it wouldn't be a vote winner. They would rather pay less tax and have poorer public services.

@Nordione1 I am keen, actually. I will look into the direct debit and set it up proportionately to my income.

It's a shame the richest in society expect those of us on minimum wage to pick up their slack though

Yes well when your small wage increases a bit and then a bit more and Labour take more and more of it and give it to Ed Milliband to build dams(!!!!!) then you might find yourself less keen. There is a facility with HMRC by the way to pay more tax. I am sure it is overrun with socialists keen to donate to the state.

Strange, because the people who say they are happy to pay more tax aren't doing so voluntarily through the HMRC scheme. So are they just virtue signalling? If they were so keen then all they have to do is set up a direct debit

@Another76543 brilliant. That should be extended throughout the country on a wide scale.

That happens already. LEAs fund some children at private school. A local (mainstream, not special) private school has lots of children funded by the LEA.

@Nordione1 if it is done proportionally and to the benefit of our society I would happily pay more tax.

I'm only on a small wage at the moment but it's going to increase and I'm happy to. As long as our public services improve, which wasn't likely under the tories, who used our money to pay their mates.

Who is actually pro paying tax? Everyone has to pay their fair share obviously but it needs to be fair for everyone and not single out education for certain kids for idealogical reasons (unlike the rest of the World).

I always laugh at people to claim to want to pay more tax. They are either very rich and aren't struggling so won't notice, don't pay tax anyway or are idealogical loons.

Our local private school has great sport facilities. They let the state school next door use them for free.

@twistyizzy hmmm interesting. I was obviously a teenager at the time I went to private school under the Direct Grant scheme so was not as aware as I thought about which government introduced and maintained it. There were a lot of changes in governments in the 1970s! I wonder why this scheme was ever thought up and then implemented, I still think it's an odd phenomenon

That eont happen until state schools improve across all of the UK. Currently you have some areas where state beat indy and it others were state provision is dire and kids come out with fewer than 5 GCSEs at grade 5+
You want to end indy sector? Improve ALL state schools (not just those in London) so that parents don't feel forced to use indy.
Have specialist SEN units in each state school, more PRUs, increase breadth of curriculum, increase sports, ensure all state schools provide proper setting and streaming so that every kid achieves their potential in EVERY state school.

If you mean who choses who goes private, catchment will be luck of the draw or who can buy into the area. Private schools are not run for the benefit of children with SEN; they are just often used by some children with SEN due to small class sizes.

So basically a large % of the kids who already attend indy schools because state can't cater for them? Which is precisely the irony of this policy because their parents are forced to pay VAT purely because the state can't meet their needs

@twistyizzy okay so people stop sending their children to private schools. They then spend more money (and therefore pay VAT), or they save it and pay tax on the interest. Win win.

@Nordione1 the app doesn't allow me to quote a post that has already been quoted.

Please attach which post you reply to. It would be much easier and make more sense.

VAT is accepted as being regressive and forces behaviour change so this is an interesting option as it will be a tax of diminishing returns.

@Nordione1 catchment, specific SEND needs, those who need services state schools can't supply.