Kier starmer! He hates strivers!

[Bucketheadbucketbum]

He wants to introduce a policy to put up the cost of school fees 10 to 15%. This is a tax on hard-working parents! We slave away cutting cots everywhere living hand to mouth to try and improve our childrens future . Live in an average house average area 1 shit car no holidays work like a dog to get our kids through. We are easing the burden on the state system by choosing independent schools. We're not sending them to Eton paid by our trust fund! Why does he want to punish strivers! Tax the energy companies! So disappointed. We need a new political party. What's the point in trying to better your future.

It might be observed that current taxes are being made not for public services but to plug a large hole in public finances created by Liz Truss.

In these circumstances, the argument that tax is for public services is not realistic. It is paying for a political mistake, and you will as a taxpayer, pay more and get less.

This is incoherent. More tax for less???

@Another76543 you are ignoring the impact of vat/other and referring only to work taxes. Many taxes are offset by the wealthy so your basic theoretical figures are not the reality. Tax avoidance is lucrative business for a reason.

Poorer people pay a higher % of their income in taxes.

You are so wrong. The very wealthy tend not to pay income tax. Many would not consider £200K as top earners. Many avoid tax very well and have most of their assets 'under the tax radar'. We have friends who are proud to say they have never paid income tax. Land-owning farmers who convert barns into million-pound houses for their children as legitimate business expenses, who drive on red diesel and who claim all manner of subsidies and tax relief. They work harder than some in finance and IT but still live a very nice lifestyle on taxpayers' subsidies. We have Neighbours whose houses are owned by their limited company as 'offices' so any work done is offset against corporation taxes - most recent one is a York stone terrace. It's very nice for sunbathing but hardly a business essential.

I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't say that whilst we came late to the joys of limited companies accounting, we have benefitted significantly from a secondary office that we can now claim expenses for and we have recently had a garden lodge converted from outbuildings for the adult children to use that is considered part of our letting business on basis it will be let a couple of times a year when demand is high because of Goodwood events. Everything we buy for it is basically tax free, and we pay very little corporation tax because our expenses are so high. All legitimate and all submitted by an accountant to HMRC. It's much, much cheaper tax wise being well off!

Most people on low wages can only imagine a £200k salary that amount but for many it is a very mediocre income for a family. It is also rarely the sole income stream.

FullFact fullfact.org/economy/guide-economy-taxes/

One outcome is that higher earners contribute a very large proportion of total income tax receipts, since they’re contributing larger slices of bigger incomes.

The top 1% of earning households pay over a quarter of the total, about 27%, and the top 10% of earners pay over half of the total, about 59%. The top half of earners contribute about 90% of all the money that’s collected.

However they seem to have changed their tune on later entry

It is much more difficult to say what percentage of these other taxes the top 1% of earners pay. Households earning the top 10% of incomes pay about 27% in total of most direct and indirect taxes, according to Office of National Statistics (ONS) data. This figure has remained roughly constant since 2009/10.

Starmer I assume will go after various things that have been in place for a long time. Other Labour governments managed not to change as they likely knew the downsides but could still win based on better policies.

With Starmer it’ll be a campaign of for the people under guise of extra pound of flesh.. whether people stick around for more tax burden I guess we’ll find out.

"With Starmer it’ll be a campaign of for the people under guise of extra pound of flesh.. whether people stick around for more tax burden I guess we’ll find out."

Well they've stuck around for Conservative tax hikes.

What a lot of hand wringing over an unjustifiable tax loophole.

But you are referring to a tiny proportion of the population. That is a whole different argument from the VAT on school fees argument. There are 6% of children educated in the private sector. Only 1% of households have household income above the figure I quoted - I picked a random figure to show the maths. People seem to think that private schools are all awash with ultra wealthy parents who should all pay more tax. It’s simply not the case. Perhaps as a country we should be concentrating on clamping down on wealthy individuals abusing the tax system rather than aiming to punish those people who are just trying to do their best by their children.

Blair has long said he was too cautious in 97. I think Starmer is an intrinsically thoughtful person, less political than Blair.

720k millionaires in UK in 2015.

In 2021/22, its 2.4m millionaires.

However much tax they or may not be contributing, its clearly not holding back people getting extremely rich in the UK.

Who gives a flying fuck how much they pay? all it really proves is that the average earner has fallen so far behind that they no longer qualify to pay much tax, despite numerous tax threshold freezes.

Its also irrelevant to paying VAT on school fees, might as well argue that Rolls Royce's shouldn't be subject to VAT.

punish those people who are just trying to do their best by their children This language is ridiculous, we all pay taxes, we are all trying to do the best by our children.

It is not the case that private school parents think they are working harder than the rest of us, that they are trying harder for their kids than the rest of us.

I had a formatting problem, I meant: It is not the case that private school parents are working harder than the rest of us, that they are trying harder for their kids than the rest of us.

@Another76543 Yes of course few people have incomes above that level- my point exactly. Many others have hidden assets and access to money but don't show as being that rich.

Local landowner/landlord who has never paid a penny in income tax managed to put six children through a reasonably respected public school, give them all houses and cars. They even had degrees and masters paid as legitimate business directors training. Doesn't sit very comfortably that there are many who contribute so little. They don't show in income figures because its not their income but they have sole access to assets.
Many smaller business owners will be able to hide their income very easily too and offset expenses. It's not just top earners.

We’ll see. Don’t moan if the tax burden gets passed to you.

My last paragraph wasn't a separate point that I made out of the blue.
It was simply in response to where you said "Yes, the "elite" would continue to "game the system" - but that's not a reason for inaction in and of itself."

The fact that you think this is a "tax raid" is very telling.

Yes, the gains are likely to be marginal, in national terms, but that's because it's a tax loop that benefits the top margins of the population.
Leaving the VAT aspect aside, removing charitable status would also mean that profits are taxed and they'd lose their business rates relief.
If roughly half of the 2600 independent schools are charities and they make £500,000 annual surpluses per year (some schools make operating surpluses of several million per year, so this is very low), that's £123m in lost tax
The business rates relief is worth over £100m that currently local authorities are effectively subsidising.

So if we take £220million as a cautious estimate, that would fund Oxfordshire City Council's gross revenue budget for 2 or 3 years.

Even if all of the schools engage in tax avoidance and only the business rates relief is clawed back, that is still money would go straight into local authorities, many of which are struggling to fund their statutory responsibilities.

A few years ago, the government passed legislation to deter use of the K2 tax scheme. Was that a tax raid, then? Estimates suggest it saved £168m and affected about 1,100 people who were using the scheme. That is a drop in the ocean in terms of national public spending.
But by your logic, that was a pointless exercise.

Taxes fund public services, of course. But taxes play an important part in managing the economy.

And taxation policy absolutely impacts on human behaviour. Governments do sometimes use tax to induce desired behaviours not just for the financial income itself.

I 100% agree that arrangements which mean people unfairly avoid tax while hardworking people pay their fair share should be clamped down on. Stopping unfair arrangements like the ones you mentioned would raise far more money than adding VAT on school fees. The super wealthy wouldn’t bat an eye lid at VAT being added to school fees anyway. What it would do though is hugely affect families scrimping and saving (for whatever reason) to pay for their children’s education. It’s been shown that VAT on school fees is unlikely to hugely affect the bigger, wealthier, higher fee charging schools; the parents there are more likely to be able to withstand a fee increase. It’s the smaller independents at the lower end of the fee scale which would be affected more.

@MarshaBradyo Do you know when in my and your lifetime the tax burden in the UK has been the highest?
Did that time see lots of people leaving the UK?

We’ll see. Don’t moan if the tax burden gets passed to you

..already has been, tax threshold & student loan TH freezes, next year 12% increase on fuel duty, below inflation pay rises for public sector..

Just pay the VAT should Labour introduce it.

Instead of moan fucking moan.. 38 pages!!! FFS the NHS is allowing 1000s of folk to die needlessly and 40k migrants crossed the channel... but "Vat on fee's.. my world will end" FGS get a grip.

@Alexandra2001 - yes this is incoherent moaning where everyone else is already paying more for less and hasn't yet been introduced. Myopic

Essentially do close the tax loopholes but no, not that one.

No poster has been able to justify the charitable status of private schools. Providing bursaries so that parents pay £15k rather than £20k simply doesn't benefit the wider public.

Private schools fees have gone up 23% over inflation. I doubt their operating costs have gone up 23% over inflation. So schools are pitching their fees at what they think parents will pay,

As businesses they will have a choice as to whether they pass the costs on or rejig existing arrangements and assets or do a mixture of both. Same as any other business.

Apparently, if you ask independent schools to make business decisions such as these (which to be honest, they're already doing under the guise of being a charity), then that's "levelling down"

Heaven forbid that independent schools have to make the same hard choices that state schools have to make.

A good comment heard the other day from an economist re tax

Taxation is getting the most feathers from a goose with the least squawking.

I’d heard it before but politics that entirely rests on taking from ‘the rich’ and shouting about it is going to ruffle people, maybe the top payers. I guess we’ll find out soon enough if it goes down well. Economists talk about taxation and impact on society and so do I, if anyone finds it dull read something else.

As for the poster upset this thread is long. Tough.

And go back to disengagement, as I do. I care not what that poster thinks - I’ll stick with not engaging hopefully they’ll remember to as well.

Exactly, the UK is facing unprecedented times...public services are wrecked...inflation has eroded their funding...people simply don't earn enough to even house themselves.. & we face strikes and an ever bloody war... thank ourselves very lucky if our main worry is an increase in fees and not a bomb coming through your house.

i truly do not know how any Govt is going to get us out of any of this.. based on their present statements and policies... there is no North Sea Oil moment coming round to save us.

VAT on School fees is simply the wrong thing to get angry about.

I don't engage with idiots.

You forgot to stick to it. Don’t quote me again.

If I may, I would like to summarise the arguments on this thread to save those who do not have the time and energy to strive through all the posts.

Here they are.

Think of the children. It is terribly unfair to single out Tarquin and Edwina's school feels for tax. How would they cope if they had to move to school where they are poor people. And anyway Charlie's on a bursary as his parents only have a holiday home in Wales and not even one in the South of France.