VAT on private school fees - will it change how you vote?

[Iwishicouldflyhigh]

Following on from the other interesting thread about whether it will be implemented, will this policy change how you vote either way?
For me - i've voted Labour and Tory over the years, but Tory for the most recent GE's. This year, i've been thinking seriously about how i'd vote at the next GE and it wasn't definitely a Tory vote - i was definitely a floating voter.
However, my children are at PS and so i will now most definitely be voting Tory (not just because how the VAT will seriously impact us - child number 3 will now not be going to the prep that we had lined up for her, she'll enter the local primary until secondary school - but how i think that it will affect schools negatively and children negatively).
I have a lot of left leaning friends who educate privately and whilst they cannot bring themselves to vote Tory, they won't vote Labour either at the next GE because of this policy.

It seems to me that this policy is only a vote loser (ie many Labour voters and 'floaters' who school privately won't vote for them at the next GE) and not a vote winner (ie i can't imagine that many Tory or 'floaters' will vote for Labour solely on this policy).

AiBU to think that Labour have really shot themselves in the foot with this idea?

It’s an odd policy politically- I doubt it’s enough to swing anyone’s vote either way if they don’t pay fees but will absolutely be single vote fornpeople who do

And thats where we are. The politics of envy have become corrosive in the UK, and it is now self-sustaining and making the country increasingly poorer.

Aha totally agree, well put. And the rest of your post.

I’d vote against it theses are business that bring in revenue to the public purse and employ people
so if some shut we loses that revenue and also have to pay for a public school place for a child who would of cost us nothing as they were privately educated

Unless you and your parents are also very wealthy, then you have benefited from the taxes paid by others, just as your taxes pay for other people now.

Your taxes have paid for the education of people from supermarket workers to car mechanics to electricians, all things that you have needed in the past.

You or a loved one might have a serious accident or illness and i can tell you from experience, you'll be very glad people have paid taxes so we have emergency services and an NHS Hospital with a myriad of tax payer funded specialists.

I don't agree with higher earners not getting CB, a tax free amount or free childcare but unfortunately thats what the Govt has done, such is the state of a mismanaged economy, austerity has cost the UK massively.

People on salaries of 50k wont be sending their kids to PS, even 100k and a SE mortgage and you'd struggle.

I'd tax assets, wealth and unearned income myself, PAYE is, as you say, taxed too much.

This VAT thing is relatively minor and tbh there is an alternative.

And thats where we are. The politics of envy have become corrosive in the UK, and it is now self-sustaining and making the country increasingly poorer

This country has been heading down hill and becoming increasingly poorer, without taxes on school fees, for many years now, all of it under a Tory Govt.

So whats the real reason?

Are you suggesting the Tories are envious of wealth?

Other (comparable) countries don't have 7m on waiting lists, crumbling schools and 48 hr waits in AE.

I could never vote Tory. Never will. DS is starting private school this year so to be honest I probably won't vote for Labour now, otherwise I might have. I tend to vote Green or Labour so it will probably be Green now.

@BouncingJAS and why do you think people are envious ? I mean it’s obvious isn’t it ?

I’m now being told that apparently I don’t pay enough and should stump up thousands extra for VAT

They are only saying you should pay VAT on rateable items that you are actually buying. Proportionally poor people pay a much higher percentage of their take home on VAT because of the VAT on ”luxuries” that are hard to avoid like fuel, travel, clothes and some foods. You can reduce your VAT bill to a certain extent by not buying VAT rateable items - your ability to do this is not hindered by your wealth but obviously lots of wealthy people so pay more VAT overall because they buy more stuff and often buy new rather than secondhand. People aren’t saying “you need to stump up more tax”, they are saying “these items are considered non essential and as such are subject to VAT”. It’s certainly debatable whether private education is a non essential item, but you can apply that to lots of things currently rateable such as clothes, shoes, fuel, walking sticks, child car seats, and famously tampons which were rateable for decades. Imo 20% VAT is too much for anything, essential or not with the possible exception of “real” luxuries like jewellery that absolutely nobody “needs”.

I don’t think it’s “the politics on envy” to put VAT on non essential goods, even though I think the 20% rate is anti business and anti consumer. The highest tax burden in 70years, the arse about face way CB has been cut for some higher income households, the rationing of free nursery places, the stupidity of the “if your mum moves her boyfriend into a house you, a fully grown adult, have moved out of, then you can’t get a full maintenance loan for university” has taken away a significant amount of money from the “squeezed middle” and higher earners and that has been 100% on the current government who are supposed to be in favour of people keeping the wealth they create.

@EffieeBriest

Thats the thing now. It doesn't matter "why".

They are the majority now (54%) so they will keep voting themselves more and more benefits.

The people who work long hours in London to earn a high income understand these trends just like I do. It really is not rocket science. People respond to incentives.

These are also effectively the people who subsidise the entire country with their taxes.

And a big portion of these folks are making plans to work less, retire, or leave the UK. Thats precisely what having very high marginal taxes does to productivity.

The effect of this is that the rest of the country is going to get a lot poorer.

And the lower earners demanding "the rich pay more taxes" will end up with an even worse quality of life.

How exactly does that help them?

The politics of envy and economic populism will invariably lead to a country like Argentina. They were one of the wealthiest countries in the early 20th Century. And look at them now.

@BouncingJAS consider Brexit. The country is already poorer because of it. There was a clear reason the left behinds voted for it. Years of neglect, underinvestment, this was the only way ordinary folk were able to have an impact on government and give the Tories a bloody nose. London and the people ‘working long hours in the city’ have seen a huge increase in wealth. Some londoners really don’t know they are born. Austerity stripped many northern towns of their libraries, leisure centres, Surestart, things that the south automatically takes for granted. So a leave vote was undoubtedly politics of envy. And the tories were quite happy to encourage that for the sake of capturing the votes of some northern justifiably envious people. Ironic really.

Absolutely Labor. Can we stop pretending people who send multiple children to PS are not rich? An extra 20% is not going to break the vast majority of those people, and if it does they couldn't actually afford PS anyway.

But this is MN so the cleaner and builder have worked SO HARD (harder than everyone else of course) to send their working class kids to PS, going without meals and electricity, and an extra 52p would break them.

Give over.

I have DCs in private school. I won't vote Labour but they will win in my constituency anyway as it's a diverse Ondon borough. I often vote for an independent candidate just to give them some support.

I am sick of it. High earners are the golden goose of the economy.

The VAT raised by this isn't going to be enough to sort out the education crisis.

Stick a few pence on every bracket of tax (every single one) and the burden will be shared amongst society.

The 'rich' people are expected to have empathy with people that are struggling to put the heating on but all empathy is lost if a 'rich' person is concerned about potential disruption to their child through their gcses.

Posters almost rub their hands with glee and make nasty comments about ski trips.

What nonsense

We have all had to share the burden of the difficulties that the country is in

Why don’t they say schools can’t pass the taxes onto parents?

Isn’t it statistically about 7% of pupils that are in private schools? Just that it seems a lot to you as you are in those circles. Labour will have crunched the numbers I would think.

How the heck would that work? When you buy food in a restaurant, the restaurant doesn't have the option to not charge you the VAT. That's what VAT is!

Parent of two in private secondary, will vote labour.

That’s all you took from that?

For some children, learning the tables will obviously be faster.
For others, using a phone would be faster and so I do advocate that. Mainly because my own child is severely dyscalculic and the stress that trying and failing to learn tables is causing is beyond a joke.

There are things she can do in maths. She understands how to work out the area of a rectangle. Will she be able to show that in an exam? Nope. Because she cannot memorise her tables. (We spent four years - four years - teaching her to count in twos and she is still not totally reliable at it, to give one example of how hard it is). So under this system can she show what she is capable of? No. But in life will it matter? No - because she’ll use her phone to do it. That’s what I was getting at.

I knew exactly what I was saying and why.

Insulting? Why would you feel insulted when I am not writing about you. I am not rich. Don't be so rude.
If you have less it doesn't mean I am rich.

Sacrificing 60k on fees isn't rich. You have to be deluded to think that 60K is "rich".

I could have written this! Unlike Scandinavia in the UK you would never get anything despite paying high taxes. Zero child benefit, poor NHS, no tax free child care nothing! You just pay more and more taxes.

If you can afford to spend 60k a year on school fees alone then of course you are rich.

Sadly very true!

Around 0.5% of voters have kids at private school so I doubt it would make much of a dent in the election result. Especially as it's likely weighted to safe Tory seats (such that there are).

I think the posters thinking they aren't rich when they spend £60k a year on school fees highlights the problem. Some people live such a privileged life they truly can't imagine living on £38k average salary let alone being in the 50% who live on less than that.

That is a problem. The scales are tipping too much to dependency