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?

I don't agree with private school in principle so I'm unsure how you came to that conclusion. It is quite apparent that those with interest in preserving their wealth on this thread can't or won't see the bigger picture.

I can see the bigger picture and it’s a terrible policy

Economically it is incredibly poor

with interest in preserving their wealth

If it was a question about “preserving their wealth”, they’d be better off using the state system rather than forking out tens of thousands of pounds a year in school fees. Arguably, if you had 2 families earning exactly the same, the family using state resources is interested preserving their wealth far more than the private school family.

The bigger picture is the impact this wealth divide has had on democracy and ultimate peace. So 'wealth' is the big issue, rebalancing that in our society has bigger implications for they way we live, VAT on private school fees as a principle is important.

You are putting so much into this tiny policy it’s incredible.

Labour obviously are hoping for views such as this but it’s economically unsound

I say tiny as economic benefit is incredibly low. Not tiny in its all Labour have and they know people are not that aware of economics so they’re leading on it

There will be very little funding from this or the other similar policy

How are you going to rebalance society by only increasing taxes for a small percentage of society? Adding VAT on schools isn’t taxing the “wealthy”, it’s taxing those who choose private education. What about the “wealthy” who use the state system? A family struggling to put an SEN child through a private school will pay extra tax, whereas a multi millionaire at state school pays not a penny more. How is that rebalancing wealth? It’s actually making the poorer family poorer, and making the richer family relatively richer.

I agree. If it was really a question of rebalancing wealth, they would be proposing a tax on all “wealthy” people. They’re not though (at the moment). All they’re doing is focusing on a tiny percentage of people who they want to punish for wanting a decent education. This policy has absolutely nothing to do with rebalancing wealth.

Of course. It’s an absolute gimmick

And it’s all they have

For me, the "Bigger picture" is 14 years of economic failure, low productivity, wage growth & austerity.

State should be the norm, it should offer an excellent education for all.

No party should be looking to raise 1.7bn through this tax, the fact that its needed is the scandal.

We have u5's with failing health outcomes, a terrible NHS, no dentistry (Police had to break the 100s queuing for a new NHS practise in Bristol) crappy cancer diags and outcomes.
Its like we live in a developing country, though as we are around 30th in the based on GDP per capita, perhaps we are?

Money has to found, vast majority simply cannot pay more tax, millions cannot even afford to live and feed themselves, with state support, despite working FT.

It was this site during Covid where I thought blimey understanding of economics really is on the floor

I'm not really sure what your qualifications are either but there you go, other than Con = Good, Lab = Bad.

If the IFS have crunched the numbers and say a: there wont be an exodus and b; it will raise the amounts, then the numbers work.

The irony on yet another culture war thread 😂

More economic understanding = good

It is how I felt and still do.

It was astounding during Covid

Oh it’s you 😬

@EasternStandard surely you have realised that something needs to be done ? Other countries manage to, why can’t we ? I really think you need to travel a bit more round the country and see the state of things. You’re coming across as blinkered, someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

@EasternStandard you did quote me earlier or refer to my post ? 🙄

It’s 7k across Leicestershire as a per pupil average. The figures on page three are the minimum funding guarantees. This is a figure at which the school budget would be uplifted to, a little off 6k per pupil, if the school for example had unusually low pupil premium numbers that’d reduced their budget overall.

It’s still a 7k average. Some may be a little over average, some a little under.

It’s still not answering my question how a private school is running as a private enterprise on roughly the same level of per pupil funding as the most deprived schools in the country yet having smaller classes.

I mean even if a state school was getting 6k per pupil as an average they could access a lot of grants for costs that private schools have to fund themselves. DFE grants for building work, sports grants etc that is over and above the minimum per pupil funding.

A private school has to fund everything from fees? So that 7.5k per pupil is funding smaller classes, more teachers, private building work responsibilities and the cost of privately accessing sporting opportunities/ trips etc. Costs like grounds works, replacing the roof etc all fall to them.

How does it work these school apparently charging 7.5k a year to produce all this extra benefit? The maths is unusal? The cost of a teacher alone for 15 pupils, taking into account on costs, is going to be. The salary plus 25%.

That class of 15 pupils will be paying £112500 in fees. Their teachers salary costs will be about 50k of that. So about 60k each class left. Let’s say each class has 0.5 TA support, that’s about 30k left.

So for a 7 form primary that’s 210k a year after in class costs. Let’s say there’s one headteacher and one admin staff member part time, being really conservative and take 70k off. 140k. For all the resources, building work, catering staff, caretaker.

Primary schools are managing, and struggling with 30 in a class. More like 200k funding per class. Double the funding per class of children.

I don’t get the maths of these schools apparently charging 7.5k a year and managing small classes sizes and extra opportunities.

Im genuinely asking.

The only answer I can imagine is 7.5k is not really the fees, but the basic fees before top up costs towards resources, running wrap around, trips, sports opportunities etc. then the maths would add up.

Thank you for this! We are in the exact same situation with friends of ours. We earn the same through mine and DH salary, my friend chooses not to work and her DH earns the equivalent of our combined salaries. We can afford PS if I keep working and they chose to go state because my friend does not want to work and also does not want to sacrifice her lifestyle (multiple expensive holidays, always dining out, spending a fortune on babysitters etc etc).

We are fundamentally the same on paper and cannot “afford more” than them. We just choose to spend our money differently yet you are asking us to dig deeper to pay up while they don’t? Just because we chose to spend our money on education and not holidays and over priced restaurants? No thank you! And yes, I appreciate that this case is not representative of the wider population but it does exist. High earners using state schools should be contributing first if they want to improve state education.

Good try after I’ve just posted I value the state education my dc received and would pay extra as a policy

I would answer your question but your post is trying to insult as per so I’ll suggest you scroll back to my early post where I say what should happen instead

The other scenario I can guess for these quoted fees of only 2.5k a term places is that’s an early years figure with nursery nurses, that is hiked up massively as they progress through their education.
2.5k a term though isn’t a shabby amount even for a term in a private nursery.
Eyfs preschool funding is roughly £7 an hour. 30 hours a week is £210, 36 weeks a year is £7.5. And providers complain about preschool funding levels

If the IFS have crunched the numbers and say a: there wont be an exodus and b; it will raise the amounts, then the numbers work.

They haven’t “crunched the numbers”, they’ve merely made a forecast based on various assumptions. There is no way of accurately predicting human behaviour. One of their assumptions is this :

“If demand for private schooling reduces as a result of increases in post-tax fees, the additional tax revenue raised would likely be unaffected. This is because any reduced revenue from VAT on private school fees will likely be made up for by higher VAT revenues on other goods and services, holding overall consumer spending constant. If parents decided to stop paying for private school fees as a result of the extra VAT, this would release spending on fees that would likely be spent on other goods and services, thereby generating extra VAT revenues.”

This is a ridiculous assumption. Do they not think that parents who are no longer paying school fees might choose to spend it on foreign holidays (no UK VAT payable), savings (only tax receipt would be potential income tax on interest), gifting lump sums to children, or increasing pension contributions (which will actually cost the state due to tax reliefs)? Their prediction is that any money no longer spent on school fees is wholly spent on other goods and service which are subject to VAT at the standard rate.

@MirrorBack ill pm you the link to thr ofsted report, the fees are quoted on there and they also had them on their website until relatively recently but I can’t find them now so there’s a chance they’ve gone up since although I can see them having gone up massively in a year or so otherwise kids would have left. It’s not the greatest academic school as you’ll see from the ofsted rating but it fills a gap in the market for sen kids that need small classes/school.
Dont want to name the school on a public forum

It’s a ridiculous assumption.

If VAT comes in I’ll end up paying around £50k extra in total.

If I decide not to use PS the bill for the state is huge.

Firstly the £50k VAT disappears. Secondly the state has to pay £100k to educate my child so already the taxpayer is 150k worse off.

Between my DH and I we’d then maximise pension contributions resulting in an annual loss to the treasury of around another 25k each year.

So over 14 years the taxpayer will be around £500k worse off if I decide not to use PS for 1 child.

I’m one person with one child yet could create an addition half a million pounds bill for the taxpayer.

This is the problem when they don’t distinguish between salary and wealth. If the money comes from salary then behaviours will almost inevitably change if PS no longer used.

Is this your 'friend'?

This reads like you are successful in sending your DC to private school because of some inherent worthiness i.e your high but equal salary is spent sensibly unlike your feckless friend but being a high earner is not the same as all wealth.

Equally, we don't itemise taxes according to what we use. An educated population is in the interests of everyone!

Exactly. It’s precisely why the IFS figures are likely to be over estimated.