VAT on nursery fees and university fees

[DontShow]

Talking through legality of labour introducing vat to private schools. Education is a non vat able service, so if they are changing that, then will they have to apply vat to nursery or university fees.

Removing the charitable status is one thing, but there are other places that offer private educational provision but aren't chariti3s.

Anyway, aibu to think in any eventuality there will be legal arguments in the courts for while before anything can be introduced......

It's ridiculous how this same thread pops up every couple of days. I'm sure you know that OP.

Yes @2thumbs

It can be the basis of a legal argument. For judicial review it definitely can.

Has it not occurred to you that when vat on private education is introduced it will be written into statute with wording that specifies 'primary and secondary level education' or something. Therefore it will be the law.

It's not exactly difficult to define what a private school is as opposed to uni or nursery. So no, there won't be any legal challenges.

It will be challenged before it gets to be written into statute

Then it's capable of judicial review anyway.

It won't be plain sailing.

If you're so certain why post then?

Discussion. Perhaps someone will identify something else credible to add.

It will only be a matter of time before the VAT is extended to nurseries and uni fees.

In the same way tuition to fees were introduced to be 'fair' and were at £3k and are now circa £9k.

I think overall tax take will be less than expected as a number of parents will fall into the following categories

1. parents can't afford the increase and child needs to be state educated. Net result increase cost to state and no VAT taken.

1. Parents who can afford it by cutting back elsewhere. So won't be going out for meals will stop the cleaner etc. so net result VAT is taken on fees but loss of VAT and income tax on other services.

1. Parents who think fuck this enough is enough. Decide to state educate and put excess earnings into pension. No VAT on fees, reduced income tax contribution and increased cost to state to educate that child/children.

Stop try to scare people OP. It is getting really pathetic now. Who would challenge it and what would be the point? It doesn't matter whether they do or don't charge VAT on university fees. The government already gives some funding to universities and if they charge VAT they will just give more.

It would be totally pointless to extend VAT to nurseries or universities. They are all partly funded by the government so they will just receive more to compensate. It would have zero impact on the people using the services.

So who would challenge and what would be the point apart from to waste tax payers time and money?

I dont know about nursery fees as nursery is partly childcare and partly the eyfs curriculumn which is education. However I think the education elements is covered by the free hours and the rest is childcare. But if you earn a certain amount you aren't eligible for the free hours so it's a bit crap to add vat to.

I dont think university degrees will become vatable as it wouldn't raise money due to the way universities are funded. But I do think we will see the tuition fees rise soon anyway as the sector is about to crumble.

I do think that all those professional qualifications people pay for themselves could run into being vatable. Like the marketing, accountancy and institute of legal execs, HR etc.

Childcare is VAT exempt. They don't 'have' to do anything.

They don’t “have” to do anything they don’t wanna do.
Quit scaremongering

Trust me, it will happen, "legality" or not

If you are thinking the left wing legal lot that defend immigration will fight this battle, you are very wrong

Labour does not want the ordinary people to have asperations, EG, a lot of those that get private education are kids of ordinary working parents that live in a semi/terraced house like most on avg wages.

Its ok for the soacilast labour leader to bang on about they use the NHS and only the NHS, but ask him if he used a private dentist

Double standards and not just with labour but the lot of them

You are stuffed if you are on avg wages or better and own your own place and have a private pension you are paying towards

My interpretation of this OP is that you are correct that this all starts to unravel due to legal difficulties.
However, it seems clear that Labour would not want to apply VAT to private nurseries, university tuition nor kids swimming/sports clubs, private pastoral/MH/counselling services - this would all be v.unpopular & effect too broad a spectrum of society but they can't abandon their VAT on private schools proposals prior to the GE as this IS popular, as the reality is that many will vote for disruption & taxes on other peoples kids even if the policy raises nothing or even costs the exchequer.
As some have noted we are no longer part of the EU, which prohibits such a tax in a few areas of EU law (e.g. that education cant be discouraged by additional taxation or unfair state vs private enterprise) but we are still a part of the ECHR where there are also legal hurdles.
Please see this article
https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/abolishing-private-schools-and-redistributing-their-assets-social-justice-at-the-expense-of-human-rights

There could also be legal challenges under UK discrimination law - particularly with SEN provision (107k affected) & its v.difficult to exempt induviduals as VAT is charged on the product/service & not the circumstances of the ndividual. Also age discrimination would be problematic as clearly charging VAT on some 5-16/18 yo kids & paying for their primary board & lodging, swimming lessons, pastoral care/MH/counselling etc when no-one else in the country would be paying VAT on them would seem legally discriminatory (please see McLoed Judgement re age discrimation on pensions)
In the light of these legal hurdles, the policy seems like populist political posturing thats even more legally difficult to the Tories Rwanda policy, HOWEVER, Labour could still (much more easily) impose the policy through a finance bill (rather than through the statute book with all the advice/debate/HOL objections etc) & claim to have delivered ...then worry about the legal consequences later

Up to now education in any school is exempt.

But they are doing something. And they can do it to other categories of goods and services that are currently exempt or zero rated.

Brexit means that the UK government can set whatever sales taxes it likes, and can change any of the principles on which it is based.

I don't rule out the salami slicing towards extension by future governments, but at the moment no party is proposing further steps

Yep, but they won't, because it's disadvantageous to the very large majority.

Trust me, it will happen, "legality" or not

Oh mate - no one trusts you!

Roll on the 4th of July!

Yes, eventually it will lead to taxing nurseries and universities. It’s a simple case of tweaking the age bracket on the legislation, it is inevitable. It’s naive to suggest otherwise.