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?

YABU to vote Tory based on pure self-interest as one of the privileged few who can afford private school fees.

Voting for

• A party complicit in genocide
• A party that has destroyed and continues to destroy the NHS
• A party that has destroyed our water system such that we have raw sewage going to rivers, lakes the sea
• A party that pushed Brexit through to protect their millions on offshore account from being regulated by new EU laws
• A party that caused the housing, energy, and cost of living crisis
• A party that has announced they are going to tell millions of those too disabled to work that they must work or starve
• A party that has largely defunded SEN education for vulnerable kids
• A party that bombing Yemen simply because a two week delay on shipments of Chinese tat is unbearable (unlike Genocide)
• A party that deliberately let the elderly die of Covid “let the bodies pile high” said the PM
• A party that milked billions of £ in fake contracts for Covid response and there are zero consequences
• A party that crashed the pound and kicked off super high inflation making mortgage rates sky high causing misery up and down the country including thousands losing their homes. The crashing of the pound made certain Tory officials millions of £ richer which is why they were celebrating at a champagne party after announcing their mini-budget.
• A party that has increased poverty, especially child poverty through mismanagement of the economy, jobs and welfare benefits
• A party that tripled Universiry tuition while doing away with maintenance grants denying many bright underprivileged students the opportunity to climb out of poverty.

You are going to vote FOR all that because they’ve promised to keep your VAT exemption on school fees. It’s selfish and callous.

@Heatherbell1978 people with 3 dc (round here schools are £22k a year). But I picked the figure from a previous poster who claimed £60k doesn’t make you rich. Compared to Elon musk maybe but it’s a level of richness.

i know many who do all they can to get SEN dc the support they need and deserve so my comments are not aimed there at all.

@Heatherbell1978 we could afford it for one dc - how do I pick my favourite? 😂
I’m not anti private school and am sympathetic just not agreeing with the poster who pays £60k and doesn’t think they’re rich. I was trying to open their eyes up to reality.

Nowhere else considers education a luxury item btw

I don’t think education is a luxury item either but lots of things that are VAT rateable aren’t luxury items. I wouldn’t call electricity, a child car seat, a winter coat, a walking stick or a toasted sandwich particularly luxurious. I think there are probably high earners who would spend £300 on a winter coat without even realising that they are paying £60 VAT, and buy a drink and a panini every day at work for £7 without even thinking it’s £7 a week VAT. They don’t realise the panini man is dropping 20% of his takings straight at HMRC’s door before he’s paid a single other bill. If people are happy for VAT to be charged on a child car seat and domestic fuel, and we have to assume people are happy as there is no claim it’s a vote swinger, then I’m not sure many people will be changing their vote due to VAT on education. Fwiw I think 20% on school fees is absolutely wrong, but I’m not sure the 5% rate applied to other “luxury items” is. We currently have the highest tax burden for 70 years while our basic services are crumbling. The 96% of voters who aren’t directly impacted by rising school fees are unlikely to switch their vote on this one issue which doesn’t impact them very much at all whilst ignoring the CoL crisis, or the closing library’s, or the care home crisis, or the death of the high street or the spiralling NHS waiting lists. There are probably more people who have burst a tyre in a pothole in the last 12 months than have a child in a private school. 30000 uk business went insolvent in 2023 - how many businesses in 2024 are hanging on by the skin of their teeth will have owners who are going to switch votes because a business in a different sector is going to have to pay VAT? There are over 400000 people who have been waiting over 52 weeks for NHS treatment, that’s more people than have a child in a private school. What will their voting priority be? It’s easy to claim in matters in a thread about VAT on school fees. Harder in the voting booth standing on your fucked up knee, leaning on your VAT rateable walking stick when your kids have been at home for months because their school is built from RAAC.

A huge number of people here can only afford PS as the grandparent’s are paying. Or couples with 2 doctors. Or occasionally people who work in finance.

@Goldenbear what did you think of Reeves announcement on no bonus caps? Out of interest

(slight diversion but interested as you talk about inequality etc)

A lot of families only educate one child privately. They may only have one child, or siblings go to state (people will have their own views on that). However, the reality is that if you have £18k spare, after paying for holidays etc, many will see you as “rich”.

education is not a luxury in the UK. Every child has a right to a state education. What is a luxury though is being able to decide where to educate your child. If your child has a SEN and state school is too rowdy etc, the ability to choose to send that child to a mainstream private school which better suits their needs is absolutely a luxury, as a parent who doesn’t have that choice will confirm.

OP your argument about VAT on savings makes no sense.

Imagine 2 couples, each saving £1500 per month.

Couple 1 spends their savings on school fees and will pay. VAT.

Couple 2 spend their savings on holidays, new car, luxury goods etc and pay. VAT.

So it's equitable. No one is talking about additional tax on savings, its about paying VAT when you spend your savings (or income) on certain goods and services.

@EasternStandard the proportion of net gainers Vs net contributors is actually dropping at the moment. 53% of the Uk take out more than they put in (vs55% a few years ago) so I don't get your point?

Also, as I said, the big hike in tax at the moment is hitting those on £40k pa not those on £100k plus who are paying school fees so your 'poor squeezed top 10% who will just give up and go elsewhere' story doesn't wash.

I have always voted labour. I have campaigned for labour. I cannot vote for them at present due to a combination of taxing education and their attitude towards women's rights. I desperately wish I could, they would have my vote in a second if I didn't feel like they were penalising children to score points with working class voters.

I can't understand why taxing education has been the policy to hang their hat on? Why education but not private healthcare if this is the road we're going down? Their own figures say they expect 20,000 students to have to move to state education, how are we okay with 20,000 more students having their education disrupted as a political gimmick?

All this policy will do is remove the scholarships and bursaries currently in place for children who otherwise couldn't go otherwise (and I was very lucky to be one of those children, and as a result of that education and nurturing environment have built a company creating jobs for 24 others), restrict private education to the even wealthier, create a greater class divide, and create private education by stealth whereby the property market around the best performing state schools becomes even more competative. It's not going to do away with private education just widen the divide.

By that reasoning any tax can can be administered on a minority group purely to gain votes even if it is economically illiterate.

That a very dangerous path to go down particularly when the economy is totally reliant on the group that are being targeted.

Why education but not private healthcare if this is the road we're going down?

Absolutely this - I have never understood why some people are keen to attack private education as a source of inequality, but not private healthcare (which arguably creates far bigger inequality than private schooling as health is so crucial). Or private nursing homes, private carers etc. Why is just ONE of the things rich people can pay for under attack and not others?

Well it’s the first gov in a long time to lean on this type of thing. As most can recall Blair didn’t. The market for tax and income is competitive

We’ll see. As I said @BouncingJAS sums it up well, have a read

Maybe what they post will be the case, maybe not. Either way I feel ok

As for dependency going down that’s good, maybe policies are impacting the numbers, hopefully it won’t go up again if Labour get in

No, because most minority groups are not well off and unlikely to vote for Labour anyway.

Only a Tory voter would think the economy was "totally" reliant on people who send their children to private school.

That a very dangerous path to go down particularly when the economy is totally reliant on the group that are being targeted.

A dangerous path is to assume that one group of people (them) are totally reliant on another (you??) and that the implications are that people better watch out... Or else.

If you think that the economy, and you personally, are not also reliant on every other person in this country regardless of income, you're crackers. We are a society, we are interlinked, we are reliant on one another. You want your kids to live in a peaceful and healthy society? Then poor people's kids need access to good healthcare and good education.

'we' don't solely rely on you and your wealth, whatever that may be.

Sorry, above message to @Charlie2121

There is at least one thread a week regarding VAT on PS. However no one is asking fundamental questions. How can we raise the public education to the level of private. By increasing the funding by 2% (an optimistic prediction of VAT intake). I don't think so.
There needs to be a complete rethink and redesign of the public educational system.

I would start with a creation of super selective academic schools, grammar level schools, normal secondaries and trade focused schools. Divide children by their ability and attitude and focus in developing their strengths.

If you can't afford the VAT, you'll have to send your kids to state school at which point you'll regret ever voting Tory. They won't get in this time.

The top 5% of wealthy families are a “ruling minority” or “elites”, you can’t call them a “minority” with the ruling classifier missing.

VAT on a luxury service like private education is not “economically illiterate” it is actually good for the economy and improves the country’s equality index.

The economy is not “totally reliant” on the top 5% of wealthy families. The opposite is the case when we look at trends in income and government subsidies. The wealthy get far more monetary government benefits than do the poorest in society. Government benefits are more exempting wealth and income from wealth from taxation, passing laws to protect the assets of the wealthy rather than directly giving them money. The value of this giverbmeht assistance far outweighs what the poor get.

It’s the labour of the working classes (middle, working, and poor) that generate the business revenues and rent payments that keep the economy going.

The top 1% of tax payers provide 33% of all income tax.

I’d guess there’s a pretty close correlation between that group of people and private school parents.

I’d hate to see how society would fare without them leaving the remaining 99% of people running it using 2/3rds of the current tax amount.

You are conflating high income with wealth. They are not the same thing.

No I am not. I haven’t used them interchangeably. When I said wealthy and wealth, I meant it. I did not mean high income. HTH.

Won't be voting Labour because of this terrible policy.
Also won't be voting Tory.
About time there was more choice than this ridiculous one or the other system, and about the different political parties worked together instead of power-grabbing and sniping at each other.

I won’t be affected as my children would have left school. However, this policy is senseless and only shows how much division is to come. We should be looking at unity not division. It will affect the middle classes and would have unintended consequences. Labour will not have our vote because of this. Also, because Angela R and David L. They are awful people who should not be in government. However, that is for a separate thread.