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?

That's just not the case though.

Most of the people I know state educate their children, even though some of them could easily afford private. Of those who do PE, they are:
owner of an engineering company
industrial scientist
Jeweller
IT consultant x2
Property Developer
University Professor x2

None of them have fees paid by GP as far as I know.

Imagine 2 couples saving £1500 per month.

Couple 1 spends savings on school fees, saving the state around £8,000 a year in education costs, but they are hit with a £3600 VAT charge.

Couple 2 spends the same amount of money on a foreign holiday. No VAT is payable.

We will have situation where people can spend thousands on a holiday with no VAT payable, but those trying to educate their children and saving the state funding are hit with a VAT charge.

The idea that families paying for private schools are somehow doing the state and the public a favour is a joke.

You are paying for your kids to get a step up. If we got rid of all private schools, I wonder how quickly funding of schools would increase.

Private school only goes on to support division and inequality.

“Like someone said above, nothing could make me vote Tory. I think Rishi is comfortably middle ground but my bones chill when I think about them ousting him and Cruella coming in. We vote for the party not the politician.”

This would also happened to KS. My skin and bones chill to think of some of the Labour members of parliament.

What planet are you on? VAT is charged on foreign holidays.
And the parents that can afford VAT on school fees will raise more than enough to fund those children moving into state schools.

They provide 33% of the income tax because their earnings are so high. If salaries were spread more equitably in this country, taxes could also be spread more equitably and there would be no net decrease.

You are paying for your kids to get a step up. If we got rid of all private schools, I wonder how quickly funding of schools would increase.

There are plenty of private schools in Europe so I would not hold my breath. The banning of private school would be a step towards extremism. Can’t wait for the time of campaigning and interviews to KS.

Private health ins is peanuts compared to private schooling, its also taxed as a benefit in kind for employees, so the insurance side of the sector is taxed.

Do you think education isn't crucial?

Whereas providing a sub standard education to 95% of the UK's children is considered centralist.

They won’t leave though not en masse. The few that do, and the wealthy do often have multiple passports and live in multiple countries, will be replaced by others.

They pay 33% of income tax because they are paid far more than they earn. A business earns profits on the backs of everyone working, but these are not shared fairly. The upper management keep the lions share and give less and less to the workers that earned most of the profits for them.

They don’t pay 33% of income tax because of some superior money making skills or by working any harder. They pay it because they are part of the ruling minority who make the rules, rules that say an executive should be paid 1,000x more than an entry level worker.

If income were more equal, the total tax revenues would not go down by 2/3rds.

It is not the job of private school parents to sort state school so I guess they only look for the best for their kids. We pay plenty of tax already so not on really.

Only 7% of children are privately educated.

Of course they doing the state and other tax payers a favour. That may not be the reason why they use private schools but it is one of the outcomes.

If they got rid of private schools I would use the fee money to buy a house in the best state school catchment area thereby pricing out a lower earning family. I wouldn’t even be that bothered what it cost as I’d have 15-20k additional funds I could spend on annual mortgage interest. How does that help anyone?

@coffeeaddict77

This is a laughably naive view of how much income people "deserve" to be paid.

Its truly amazing to me that people think "they should be paid a comfortable salary" without being productive enough.

People with those views have zero understanding of business. They ignore what is at the other end of the equal sign.

Who are you (the company) selling your services to?

You can ONLY pay yourself the income you earn. And the UKs productivity has effectively been abysmal for 15 years now.

So once again, let me ask you:

Why do you deserve a pay rise if you are doing the same work and hours?

You don't get a pay rise simply for showing up a job from 9-5. You get one from adding value to the bottom line of the company (i.e they sell their services more efficiently and make a higher level of income).

Until you can do that, there will be no pay rises for you. Quite the opposite.

The people that work in high paying jobs are pretty much ALL workaholics. They put in the effort to advance and achieve higher pay by adding value.

Amongst a sea of ridiculous and uninformed posts on this thread this one is a belter. Almost impossible to beat I reckon.

Same. And I wouldn’t be getting involved in trying to improve the state school system as an ‘invested private school parent’ as someone else suggested upthread, I’d be hiring tutors.

It’s fairly offensive to existing state school parents that white horse private school parents would somehow be able to ride in, and effect change.

Well the IFS seem to think the VAT will amount to a net gain leading to an increase in funding so you're perhaps not doing the favour you think you are.

£60,000 a year on school fees and you feel insulted that some think you are 'rich'. 😂so out of touch with the vast majority of society.

Here's the world smallest violin 🎻

@Charlie2121 the interesting thing about the stat that the top 1% pay 30% of income tax is how unfair it is for the very high income people who pay the full whack. The average tax paid by people with income of £1m plus is only 35% - the same as people on £100k. That's because so many take the income as dividends and only pay 11% tax.

Instead of tinkering with VAT on schools I'd like to see labour put a minimum 35% tax on all income and gains over £100k. That'd raise £11bn a year.

Or a 1% wealth tax on millionaires would raise £52bn a year. Maybe have that for 3-5 years to pay off covid debt and fix public services.

Whatever tax people want you need to keep it here. So factor in behaviour and competitive tax market

We pay plenty of tax already so not on really

Everyone pays VAT on rateable products and services. Do you think if you are a high earner you should pay a lower rate of VAT on things you buy because you have already paid income tax? If something costs £100 ex tax, should a benefit recipient pay £140 because they haven’t paid as much tax, an averaged salaried earner pay £120 because they’ve paid a decent amount of tax, a high earner pay £105 because they’ve paid more tax than the other 2 and a millionaire can have it for free because they are carrying the lot of us? Should expensive stuff be exempt because it is only ever bought by rich people? VAT on the George at Asda clothes, but Versace is exempt because the consumer has a high income tax bill.

You only pay VAT on the goods and services you buy. Anything you don’t buy doesn’t cost you any VAT, irregardless of how much tax you may or may not have paid through other streams. People are carrying on like buying really expensive stuff is completely necessary just because you have loads of money. It’s not.

I agree. High earning PAYE employees are always worst affected primarily because they are the easiest to take money from.

You think that an enhancement of that power or an acquiescence of the current situation is the way forward then? You think basing an economy on the purchasing power of the elite with it's corresponding boom and bust behaviour is something we should continue and aspire to? You think that perpetuating inequalities in the distribution of economic power and the patterns of poverty that are statistically affiliated with this imbalance, is the way forward? Don't you think that an equitable education system is an essential foundation for a democratic system? I'm unsure how anyone, even the wealthy, feel that this is a nice way to live.

When you are outside your bubble, don't you ever question this current state of affairs? Personally, I live in a pretty wealthy area, in a home county, my DH is an Architect but at Director's level, I work in Privacy/data, we are on paper well off but we still are not in a position to not worry about purchases at a supermarket, a holiday that is put on the credit card, a very small house but lucky for us we have converted for a third bedroom, no Architect fees- of we are constantly questioning this stuff, how must it be when you are not in our position and we are the lucky ones! Both my DC go to a Good secondary and 6th form college but it is not all wealthy kids that live near these, not in any sense. I know of a child of 12 that shares a bedroom with her Mum and had 4 cup cakes for her birthday cake and a frozen pizza to share with her friends, one small present, we both know people the other end of the spectrum of wealth, there is such a disconnect now and it is simply not right, I am not sure how anyone can be ok with this. I was in a local shop the other night and these pale young men (about 19 but looked physically younger than my 16 year old DS)came in, looked pretty unhealthy and aggitated, they could not find the words to use to communicate with each other, such is the crappy education system and austerity measures that have let large numbers of young people down over the last ten years. They then tried to wind up the security guard, called the self service woman a name- I don't think you can say something didn't go wrong for them at the educational stage or that poverty had nothing to do with the outcomes for these young men. When are we going to wake up, who wants to live in a society where the rich have all the power and there is no motivation to aspire for anything anymore as every step is impossible without a great heap of money behind you!

So it would appear, so long as you get to have more money than most people will ever have and your kids get a great education, who cares about the rest of the population.

Oh my God!

Just imagine the outrage on here if Labour proposed that???