High earners should be charged for state schools!

[RawCoconutMacaroon]

BBC report this morning carries the suggestion from Dr Anthony Seldon, head of the private Wellington College, that parents with a family income of £80k should pay for state school places.

WTAF? Kind of ignoring the fact that it is ONLY people on fairly high incomes who actually pay enough tax to cover the cost of their child/children's state school place (roughly £4500 per year per child). Yes of course tax is collected according to an ability to pay and then distributed so all benefit from "free" education, which is right and proper...

BUT he thinks people who are already paying a lot in tax should effectively be penalised and charged again for their child's place at state school! Although maybe he's coming from the POV that if high income parents have to pay for state school, they will be more likely to pay out for their child to go to his private school.

Bronze - so do you then think it's reasonable to take £3k of that £4,431 per month, assuming the average of 2 dc's ?

We are probably on abit less than 70.k tbh. Take home is just under 4k I think. We are comfortable and are not complaining at the moment. We absorbed loss of chb but could not absorb paying over 13k for our children's education.

Yes with 4dc say 18k out of 80k gross. Fab idea.

Sorry, just saw that it's £4500 per child, I thought I had heard £20k earlier-however, still £750pm, still a large chunk of post tax income..

It's £53k p.a. after tax/NI.
Assume mortgage of £2k p.c.m., council tax of £300, insurance, water £80, TV, gas, electricity, phones... about @18k p.a. left, before commute/car/transport or food. (some season tickets are many thousands of pounds a year)

Allow pension contributions, professional membership fees, professional indemnity insurance, life assurance/medical cover for not being able to work etc etc etc... none of these items are really luxuries, or leaving a huge amount to swank around on tbh.

Zak not sure where Highho lives, but on her figures:

1k mortgage 100 endownments 350 pension 200 car loan for commute. 200 petrol for commute. That 50% gone before bills food etc

That leaves 2900 a month from 80k after taking out tax and NI, surely a family can live on that amount of money even in London? I agree it'd rule out school fees though if you had 3 DCs.

And all that is before childcare (people in professional roles don't tend to work school hours only and do require some form of childcare), which isn't exactly cheap (nor should it be).

We are not earning 8ok though. Out mortgage is also cheap as we brought when prices were lower.

Zak you don't need a 2k mortgage though, you buy what you can afford and if you can't afford 2k a month then you buy a house somewhere cheaper. I'd love to live in London but I couldn't afford the mortgage on a house there so I left and moved further out. You cut your cloth according to your income.

Zak.

I wasn't considering all these insurances, membership fees we have never bothered with these.

Also with 3dc childcare would be huge as dh works long hours with long commute so I can't even work fixed part time hours without paying for childcare.

highho, I'm not saying you earn 80k, just taking your figures as typical. I'm not sure what an average mortgage is nowadays as we paid ours off when we moved from London to the north.

Sadly jobs paying 80k seem to normally be where or close to wear 2k mortgages are. Try watching homes under the hammer to see the difference and no we don' t live in london but dh works near there.

yes bronze- you cut your cloth, but how can you possibly say someone on £80k cannot afford a mortgage of £2k p.c.m.? A mortgage of £2k is only a property of around £320,000 (depending on deposit)- we're not talking millionaires mansions here, fuck it- you couldn't buy a 3-bed house in Tooting for that!

morethan- some professions cannot avoid these costs/insurances.

I don't think I said that, but others were saying it's an expensive mortgage. I think people on 80k a year should be able to afford a 2k mortgage.

I think the thread is being slightly derailed by an argument about how people should be spending their money and perceptions of what life is like on a certain income, rather than the ridiculousness of the suggestion, but...average London house price-say a pretty conservative £500k. Interest only repayment on that would be £2300, not £1,000.

We have 3 DCs and there's no way we could afford three lots of private school fees at 15K each p.a. That's 45k p.a. out of money already taxed. Mortgage 3K monthly allows us to live near good state primary and grammar. I think I'd rather work less and earn under the threshold. Then I'd get CB back again as well.

OK middle class lifestyle admittedly - and nor mortgage but live in an expensive part of London. This is monthly and I haven't added it up. Numbers are ball park:

DD's school fees incl X's: 1500
DS's Uni allowance to incl rent: 600
Food for three adults: 600
Four phone contracts: 75
Council tax: 200
Utilities: 250
Cars: 250
Virgin 40
Healthcare: 225
Cleaning: 200
Min spending (going to work, odd coffee, lunch) for two: 400
TV licence, parking permit, etc: 30
Clothes, incl uniform: 200

That's about 4500 before passing go: no pensions or life insirance included, no mortgage, grandma paying uni fees, no holidays, no eating out or entertainment, no allowance for decorating or replacing furniture, washing machine, etc.

Schools here are dire - we tried. That's where more than 80k goes in London. If I didn't work we wouldn't need the cleaner, but that's the only luxury.

Where we are you don't need loads of money to get in to the top performing state schools. You can get into the catholic schools from anywhere in the city and the non-denominational schools have fairly mixed catchments.

The IFS calculator puts a family of 2 adults and 2 children on the 85th percentile with an after tax income of £5000 a month. That's about what you'd get if you had two earners on £40k with no pension contributions of student loan repayments. A single earner wouldn't make as much as this net. The two earner family would get CB on top of this too. The whole percentile thing is a bit silly anyway because above a certain amount the variation at the top end is just enormous. It isn't linear (like the rest of the income distribution). So the difference between an income that gets a family into the top 10% and one that gets them into the top 5% is really big. The difference between 5% and 1% is hilariously big.

I think people imagine that a family income of £80k makes people 'rich' in the same way that an income of £1 million might. Or that everyone with higher than average salaries is sitting on a big pile of inherited wealth. Yes, it's a lot more than the median salary or household income, but it really isn't buying a yacht territory.

I get really confused as to why people break down the amount of tax they pay, in relation to their own immediate needs.

I am happy to pay tax, in order to support ALL children to have a good state education. It's in everybody's interests for us to have a well educated nation. Today's children at school are tomorrows doctors, teachers, IT professionals, care workers, bankers, engineers, politicians etc etc etc. I want to live in a country where everybody is educated to the highest standards we can manage.

Likewise with the NHS, likewise with public amenities. Just because I don't necessarily use these things now, it doesn't mean I want to live in a country where we don't invest and support them for all.

It makes no difference how many children I have personally. It makes no difference whether I choose to use the state school system or pay for them to go to a private school. It makes no difference where I live.

What matters is that ALL children have an acceptable (however we define that) chance at an education, and I think probably more money needs to be found from somewhere to fund it. The idea of taxing parents earning over a particular threshold an additional amount is bonkers. Why not just raise taxes across the board at that income level? The childless couple earning £70 thousand plus still have a vested interest in living in a well educated nation.

Zak, are they really compulsory and part of the job.

My dh was self employed, now his own LTD co in a profession where he could have a couple of subscriptions etc, and I guess insurances would have meant peace of mind, possibly. But we could never afford these, so did without.
I think if you read between the lines they are completely avoidable if you want to, unless they are part of the contract.

I just find it odd what some people see as compulsory or unavoidable or luxury.

The article that I read (bbc, I hate far more than dm) said 'wealthy' parents on more than 80k head bangs in despair. Because high earning and wealthy are obviously the same thing

Education should be free for all at point of delivery, end of.

Which schools exactly would be charged for? Any that are oversubscribed or above certain ofsted rating what if that changes? Do new entrants not have to pay when others do?

Morethan - just to agree with Zak... I pay about £500 per year in professional fees. Totally non negotiable in order for me to keep practising.

I also pay about £100 for public liability insurance. If I didn't, I'd be breaking the law, and working irresponsibly.

My FTE salary is about £35 thousand, and I only work part time. So that's a pretty considerable chunk I think. Totally standard situation for people working within certain professions.

Insurance isn't for 'peace of mind'! It's to protect your client if something goes wrong! (how much do you think architects and surveyors would be sued for if the shopping mall they built fell down? Or the cosmetic surgeon when they botch someone's nose job?)