AIBU to call for VAT to be charged on childrens books?

[ZirihePevzig]

VAT is charged on things that are luxuries, so that wealthier people who can afford the extra luxuries of life pay more into the government's income for running the country than those who are just living with the bare essentials and making ends meet without luxuries. Therefore there is no VAT on basic food stuff, but more luxury foods like icecream, confectionary and crisps have VAT added, and food that is sold for eat-in in restaurants or sold heated (there was a whole thing about Greggs Pasties not being VATable if they are still hot straight from the oven, but would be VATable if reheated). In general, VAT is a good thing because wealthy people with a clever accountant can fiddle things to hide income and get away with paying less income tax than they should, but if you are leading a luxurious lifestyle you are going to pay the VAT on it.

Things that are considered to be generally "A Good Thing" don't get VAT added, such as sporting activities and physical education, education and training, and medical treatments - VAT is effectively a "brake" on spending on non-essentials and its seen as inappropriate to tax things like this that it's not a bad thing to spend money on. Books come under this category and so are zero-rated.

However, in real life, books really are a luxury - even without VAT a book is generally around £10 (sometimes it might be as low as £7) and you could feed a family for at least a day on that. Less wealthy families are going to use libraries and get access to books for free, so the main beneficiaries of the VAT exemption on books is wealthy families who can afford to throw away £10 on something they could access for free at the library. Some affluent households may own thousands of books, and that's a huge amount of luxury goods that could have been taxed. You won't find that kind of book collection in households struggling at close to poverty levels.

OK I admit it, I am not actually in favour of charging VAT on books, but the exact same argument - that only wealthier people can afford it - is used as justification for the suggestion that education should no longer be in the list of things that are VAT exempt. If this is the case and education should no longer be VAT free then books are in the same category.

So if you are voting that IABU to call for VAT on books then you should also be supporting non-profit-making schools - ones that are providing education as a service, not as a business, in regions where the state offering is inadequate - to be able to charge their fees at cost-price without adding VAT, even though not everyone can afford that.

So YANBU = yes books and education are only accessible to poor people in their "free" forms from public libraries and state schools, so anyone who can afford the extra money to access a better version privately should pay VAT on that luxury

YABU = books and education are ultimately good for society and not appropriate to be taxed, even though the available budget for spending on them will be unfeasible for many people.

A fairly high percentage of children at the most expensive schools mentioned on here are foreign students. They wouldn’t send their children over here to go to a failing comprehensive, so their millions wouldn’t “magically appear” in the state system.

What people seem to overlook as well is that a lot of the older independent boarding schools in particular support the local economy. They employ a large number of people from the local area in support staff roles (cleaners, catering, gardeners etc). If schools start losing pupil numbers, savings will need to be made somewhere. It really isn’t straightforward.

I disagree that those people wouldnt find alternative employment.

And its lovely that foreign student bring in lots of nice income but bot so mice when they leave the UK when they finish school with that same education.

No I wouldn’t put VAT on children’s books because 1) I don’t think books should be considered a luxury and 2) I don’t think the prices would come down again if VAT was ever removed - as @JoyDivisionOvenGlovesx mentions, VAT was recently removed from ebooks (imo more of a luxury product than children’s books) but prices didn’t go down https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/02/09/ebooks/

This nails it.

VAT should absolutely be paid on the luxury of private education.

It's not always some can afford and some can not and if it not a necessity then it's a luxury. Plenty buy things like books etc on the margins of affordability by making sacrifices to buy them because they see the benefits of making sacrifices. Increase in cost pushes them out. Doesn't matter if rich people get books bit cheaper than they maybe should if it means better access for les rich. If you could guarantee all vat on books is ring fenced to providing public access to free books in addition to existing funding not instead of, then maybe it has a merit. But that is not possible.

I know that reading is not a luxury, knowledge is not a luxury, and education is not a luxury.

Most people, if they care about education, do what they can within their budget to enhance the access to education that their children can have, over and above what they can get for free.

For some, it's the odd extra cheap book in a supermarket trolley, for some it's subscriptions to magazines like NatGeo kids and Aquilla, for some it's extra lessons on saturdays to learn about other languages and cultures not covered by the school curriculum, and for some they might be able to afford partial fees and have the remainder made up by a bursary, or might be able to afford full fees. It is all the same continuum, and it's either a luxury or it's not. It's irrational to say that one end of the range is a luxury and the other end isn't.

As a few people have spotted, yes I have a DC at an independent school. We are no wealthier than our neighbours whose kids go to a local state school - yes a bit above average but not anything like "elite" - but (a) they have the good fortune that their child has no additional needs, and (b) they spend a similar sort of budget to what we spend on fees on their annual holidays (which alternate between skiing or All Inclusive luxury beach resorts), upgrading their car regularly, paying down their mortgage and boosting their pension and other things that we can't do. The independent school in question has about 40% kids with additional needs, mainly Dyslexia and Autism - but only about 10% of the pupils (ie a quarter of those with additional needs) are there with any council funding due to an EHCP. There's obviously a threshold of proof for state funding to provide that, and obviously it's rigorous, and obviously that threshold is far stricter than the level at which a concerned parent can see that their child is being totally failed by the underfunded state sector, with SEN provision that is far below what their child actually needs. The school isn't a great source of networking or elite privilege and makes no profit on the fees, but if fees go up by 20% I don't think enough pupils will be able to afford to stay for the school to stay financially viable, and hundreds of children with additional needs will be shoved back into a state sector that will let them down.

I can see that some people on this thread think all independent schools are like Eton. I can see that at the very top of the school fees spectrum, you might be able to distinguish between some proportion of the fees that are actually about providing education and some proportion that are actually buying luxurious standards of comfort and elite privilege. I have no idea how one could go about assessing what that split was, but if it could be assessed I don't suppose it would be too bad to charge VAT on the "luxury" proportion - but I know that the proportion is 0% or close to 0% for a lot of independent schools - which as I said in my OP are mostly making no profit and providing a service that is desperately needed in the context of an inadequate state provision.

Obviously I would much rather the state sector was adequately funded such that these schools weren't a vital lifeline. Cutting the lifeline isn't the way to achieve that.

There are clearly some people who want to believe that it's totally different and apparently "disingenuous" to equate the additional education they can afford by buying books and other cheaper ways to boost educational achievement vs the education that I can afford because I am willing to live a general lifestyle as if my income was at minimum-wage level, and put the difference into my child's education. I see your cognative disonance, that's why you are angry because it's an uncomfortable feeling in your mind until you can work out a reason to dismiss me with rudeness.

I also don’t think VAT should be charged on school fees. I understand the argument that private schools entrench inequality, but so do lots of things that society accepts or even encourages. Not everybody reads to their kids, should we discourage that? Plus it’s unrealistic to think that making private school more expensive or even banning it fixes inequality - the parents will just buy houses next to the best state schools or send their kids to private school abroad or whatever.

Imo excellence is as important as equality and I would rather have some excellence than none + equality. As the state doesn’t have any money there won’t be excellence in the state sector and anyway the ability of the state to provide good schools is helped by taking the burden of educating private school kids off the state.

Your neighbour pays VAT on a lot of that other, non education discretionary spend though. Why shouldn’t you pay VAT on how you choose to spend your money?

Children's books are definitely not a luxury. Independent education absolutely is a luxury.

This. Sorry OP but your analogy doesn't work.

Wise up. children’s books aren’t a luxury, they’re a necessity. There’s no VAT on ANY books. Nor should there be.

You’re not going to get much sympathy that a tax loop hole wealthy may soon be closed.
Long over due.

I didn't make it to the end. Still voted yabu.

Come the revolution…

er no

complete nonsense arguement

the only people who are going to agree with you are the ones too bored by this endless rambling, and just want to nod and get away as fast as they can.

In deprived communities children would rather purchase video games rather than books. This shouldn't be the case but it is

If libraries are used mostly by the middle class (and similarly book purchasing) then you do have an albeit small subsidy for the middle classes

Our local library is being knocked down and the council may not rebuild it. The argument is that there are sufficient books in schools and there is no need for a library where users can afford their own books. There is a perception a lot of users are virtue signalling any way

Its such a cliche that people who pay private school fees claim their neighbours could too if they had less skiing holidays.

The vast majority don't have skiing holidays at all, or brand new cars, or all the other things you claim, and could still never afford private education.

You sound like the sort of person that thinks everyone could afford a house if they didn't buy costa coffee.

It is all the same continuum, and it's either a luxury or it's not. It's irrational to say that one end of the range is a luxury and the other end isn't.

This doesn't make any sense.

You can negotiate the terms of your contract with the business currently being paid to educate your children. It’s a business so would be foolish to charge so much more money for their services that they lose all
paying customers.
Your demand that the poorest children should have owning books put further out of their reach is both sickening and indicative of the privilege that you claim not to have.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣this made me proper Lol.

it would make books more unattainable to many xx

"I’m staying in with you! The recent merry go round of e-books is equally fascinating."

Yep! I agree @JoyDivisionOvenGlovesx!!

I fall down the rabbit hole often when looking at vat cases

Op - there’s no VAT on any print books - is it just children tiu wish not to have the chance to read and learn, or adults too??

Possibly have VAT on children's books and have more books in school libraries? I think in that way you have more of a chance getting books to the disenfranchised and prevent David Walliams increase his fortune by selling his books more cheaply?

97% of 417ish voters agree with me.

(as you can see if you can read my posts, my own position is that it's unreasonable to charge VAT on educational benefits generally, including books - I was clear in the OP that "YABU" was a vote to agree with that POV)

A handful of the people who have actually posted on the thread (much fewer than those who have voted) have tried to argue that there's a qualitative difference between buying an additional educational advantage that they choose to buy vs buying an additional advantage that they don't or can't, but have not made any rational reason for drawing this difference other than that they want to. I can only imagine that these people abstained from the voting as they didn't agree with the fundamental premise - still a massive minority.

Nah its a luxury