Labour, private schools VAT and universities

[BloodyHellKen]

Following on from the thread about Labour, private schools and VAT please could someone explain to me why we shouldn't be concerned that a Labour govt wouldn't remove tax exemption from universities also as they are also VAT exempt in the same way private schools are.

I'm not personally worried about VAT being added onto private school fees and I recognise arguments for and against but the possibility of VAT being added onto a university education does really concern me.

Anyone?

If we are paying a lot more tax than you in absolute terms, then even if we adjust that tax figure to take into account the fact that we have used our allocated school places and you chose not to, we could still be much bigger net contributors to the public purse than you. How can you not see that? It is not as compartmentalised and black and white as you seem to view it.

You are a bit muddled. Tax on income and capital gains is progressive. Tax on expenditure is regressive and some expenditure being exempt from tax does not mean the ‘taxpayer’ is buying it. Whoever is paying for it is still funding it. There’s nothing coming from the taxpayer towards it.

It is compartmentalised because it's about one decision: state or independent.

We all pay progressive income tax and I haven't seen anyone on here (certainly not me) saying we shouldn't. Some pay more than others. You might be paying more than me, or less, and I suggest we keep it that way rather than showing off who's the bigger taxpayer.

Given what you've said about your children, I suspect you're a few years older than me. If that's right you've probably had very different lifetime exposure to house prices, stamp duty and income tax rates and thresholds....to my very large disadvantage....if you want to bring in "complications", let's include everything.

Or, for the sake of the question in hand, let's deal in the one difference: taxpayer-funded or independently-funded school. For any given level of income, independent school parents contribute more to the public purse, and to state schools, than state school parents. I'm pretty sure you agree.

That is a load of bollocks,