VAT on private school fees the gateway to VAT on university?

[LalaPaloosa]

Am I being unreasonable to think this is just the beginning for VAT on education? Once VAT on private schools is bedded down, Labour will start looking at universities. Think about how much they can make there.

Are you sure?

No doilies mentioned......

🤷‍♀️ the point stands. You stand back and watch others get shafted, don’t cry rivers when the shafters come for you.

No they are more likely to end private schooling altogether, but I think grammar schools will actually be the next educational target.

I think, as a matter of principle, that it is wrong to tax education.

DC not a private school, so not coming at this from the angle of current or planned schooling becoming unaffordable. Just as I think that it's wrong to tax information (books and most printed matter are currently zero-rated) I think education from pre-school to university should continue exempt.

Everyone I went to university with drank like fishes (and still does from time to time).

Your post is offensive. You may wish to ask MNHQ to delete it to save you from embarrassment.

Niemöller was talking about people who were literally hunted down, imprisoned and murdered for their race/religion/politics/etc. Entire families wiped out. Genocide.

And then there's you, in an astonishingly tawdry, crass, tone-deaf and outright offensive attempt to fear-monger about UK politics, you used that heart-breaking piece to whine about taxing private schools.

Get a sense of perspective you heartless ghoul. And a fucking grip.

@Zonder In response to your question:

Are you seriously wondering what is wrong with using the phrase "Jarlath can't go and build a mud hut for the natives in Zanzibar this year"? (as stated by @BananaLambo )
It's an horrendous and unnecessary racist trope. Absolutely nothing to do with a discussion on VAT on private school fees.

I think it's incumbent upon you to explain why you are 'with' @BananaLambo on this (specifically the quoted phrase) and why you think it's okay to use descriptions like that.

FWIW I've got kids in private school but I've voted Labour all my life. This proposed policy has certainly opened my eyes to some of the company I've been unwittingly keeping via my voting preferences. I've never seen such vindictive bile in all my life.

Ha thanks for telling me it's incumbent on me to explain. I'll just leave it to your imagination. Il sure you can do a great job of inventing racist tropes.

@Zonder you're not making sense.
Why is it okay to state that?

Not embarrassed at all. The point stands. I love the fact I’m a “heartless ghoul.” I bet that’s coming from someone that needs trigger warnings on everything 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

No, not at all. Your comment was tasteless as is your most recent one defending it.

Yes it will be extended to universities. The principal of education taxing has been introduced now, there will be little to stop it being rolled out to those aged outside the targeted 4-18 age bracket. Look out for the ‘students/nursery children receive tax break’ mantra later this year. It will be rolled back as soon as Labour are gone though, taxing education is an embarrassingly stupid and backward thing to do.

But why? Why would the government charge itself an additional 20% when the actual extra cash they'd receive from the tiny minority of undergraduates who don't take a student loan and the eventual long term repayments from the minority of wealthier graduates who pay their loan off in full would be only a fraction of that?

There's a huge difference between charging a tax (however unpopular) which will immediately flow through in cash to the bottom line and show as a benefit, and charging a tax which will in the short term simply be paid by one government department to another.

You'd be taking a really unpopular decision with a disproportionately low upside that you won't even be able to take financial credit for for decades. And we've demonstrated adequately over the last ten years that the previous government would rather see universities crumble and collapse than change the headline tuition fees. Bringing those fees even slightly up to date with inflation will be quite controversial enough without an entirely unnecessary VAT increase on top.

It would be very Sir Humphrey wouldn't it. Treasury gives £ to DfE (to fund SLC to give students loans for fees and VAT).
In return DfE gives two thirds of it back to Treasury - in 40 years time! 🤣

It really won’t be.

@MarthaDunstable
You’ve got me there. I really couldn’t give you any reason for taxing education other than spite to be honest, it’s nonsensical. If we’re not taxing nursery parents and university students by the end of Labour’s current government I’d be utterly amazed. Hope I’m proved wrong.

Great 👌

I don't see that happening.
7% of children go to private schools, it's an exclusive service you opt into when you have the money and feel your children would benefit from this exclusive upgrade (state provision is available to all) I appreciate that SEN children are often underserved by state schools, but for longer term system change those parents need to stay & fight their ground with LAs rather than opt into private provision.

Most children across every social class/income bracket use nurseries for their young children. Nurseries have been shown to prepare children for school and decrease the gap between richer & poorer children.

Universities prepare and train the workforce, yes definitely class/income plays a huge role in higher education and its students, but again there is the promise of levelling up and the loan system is supposed to equal up poorer students opportunity to study for a degree.

I ain't saying it's perfect but I can't see the connection between taxing VAT on private schools = taxing nursery and universities which are not luxury services in our society.

Just as you don't get charged VAT on NHS services, like having a surgery etc. but you would if you used a private provider for cosmetic surgery because that would be viewed as a non-essential.

I get you can be angry about change, people often are, but I don't think it's justified on this issue which has been anomaly and should have attracted VAT a long time ago.

I’d imagine most people differentiate between positive change and negative change before getting angry, schools closing down and reduced education options goes in the negative change for me.

Private healthcare is still on the VAT exempt list, just as education was until a month ago. Neither education or healthcare should be considered luxuries. Labour could use the exact same argument for taxing health care as they did for education and stir up a bit of resentment (unfair blah blah, we can make a bit of money blah blah) , but the net result would be further strain on NHS and less healthcare options for everyone. Just as education tax results in further strain on the state education services and less education options for everyone.
Labour will eventually tax every form of fee paying education, it is inevitable. Arguing it’s impractical and damaging is irrelevant, education tax of 4 to 18 year olds is damaging and they have pushed forward. This is because ideology trumps any sort of practicality.

@FixItFi cosmetic surgery

I’ve genuinely never heard the ‘tax education because it’s like cosmetic surgery’ one before. It’s an interesting point and I’ll give it careful consideration 🙄