Would Labour voters be upset if joining the EU meant they could no longer tax children’s education?

[Blarneyspoco]

Taxing children’s education is banned as part of EU membership. If the U.K. rejoined the EU, would Labour supporters be upset that they can no longer levy the tax or would it be seen as a necessary compromise.

So schools are using the imposition of VAT as a lever for incentiving retention. Is this something all private schools are offering as a way of managing budget forecasting? Why would parents pay it voluntarily, unless not paying it threatened the viability of the school? Even if 20% VAT and inflation are taken into account, I don't see how the total increase could be as high as 50%.

The fees per term at the school my DC attended were c.£6,000, discounted by 10% because of the music scholarship.They are now £7,100. So an increase of less than 20% to cover VATvand inflation, and also far less than 50% over the seven-year period.

Again for the millionth time, not everyone paying this VAT is rich! My income is below average and I stretch everything to pay for my kids' comparatively inexpensive private school because I don't believe the state schools available to them would have met their needs.
I've explained this so many times it's unreal.
If you agree with the VAT that's one thing but please please ditch the "they're rich enough to afford it" messaging now that you have been clearly informed that it is untrue.

Ah ok It’s not that you want education services to be vatable, only those supplied by non state schools to children aged 5 to 18 and that’s because of the advantage? And it’s not to punish children for having an advanatge or make it less accessible by making it more expensive, it’s simply because you think anything that gives an advantage should be vatable? Have I got that right? Any particular reason why you don’t see an advantage to education outside of ages 5 to 18?

No, that’s not quite what I said. I haven’t argued that anything which gives an advantage should be VATable.

I’m saying I don’t see a compelling reason why privately purchased school education should retain a specific VAT exemption simply because it is “education”. The fact that people buy it precisely because it offers advantages is relevant to that argument.

That doesn’t require me to believe every form of education, at every age and in every setting, should therefore be taxed.

Books give an advantage too. And are freely available at the library.

Shall we add VAT to books?

No I get you, it’s the reason people pay for the education services between the ages of 5 and 18 that makes you believe it should be taxed? outside of the ages 5 and 18 people are paying for education for different reasons that make education services still worthy of VAT exemption. It’s the reason people pay for education services at different ages that decide whether education is vatable or not as far you’re concerned?

Many years ago, car manufacturers charged extra for ABS. The rationale was that it was for "comfort". Then a rather dim salesperson made the fatal error of trying to upsell ABS by saying it was "safer". From that point on the battle to milk customers for ABS was on a losing streak, as it looked like selling safety at a premium.

See also: airbags

The OP can have that rather tortured analogy for free. At least it's something fresh for the argument.

Oh right.

So although books do give an advantage (especially to children)...

... but actually, the reason I buy them for my DC is mainly for pleasure, not because it brings advantage..

.. so because I buy the books for pleasure not advantage, that's why it's OK for them to be tax-free?

Whereas if I had bought them for advantage (which they do confer, regardless of intent), then they should be taxed?

Seems rather tortuous logic @HandPulledNoodles

But 'logic' applied after the fact to justify an emotional choice often is.

@IdaGlossop - it’s interesting because there is going to be massive regional variety. I am in London where even your bog standard GDST school is now over £27000 a year. And they are meant to be the cheap version of London private schooling. Westminster School is now over £50000 per year for a day student. The mind truly boggles and their results aren’t much better than the top grammar schools with their £6700 per year funding.

That’s such a stretch it’s barely engaging with the argument. As you were.

You’ve now invented an entire tax principle I haven’t argued for and are criticising me for not applying it consistently.

I did not say “things that confer advantage should be taxed”. I said the fact private education confers a substantial privately purchased advantage is one reason I don’t find its VAT exemption especially compelling.

Whether you buy your child a book for pleasure, enlightenment or competitive advantage is completely irrelevant. You’re arguing with a position of your own construction and then declaring it tortuous.

So much of an advantage, by the way, that we have taxpayer-funded libraries and charities give away bundles of books to all children!

My DC does still have many more books on her bookshelf than a child relying on those though.

I really, really can't see why books are still tax-free when education isn't. Won't someone please close that tax loophole?! Otherwise poor children are paying for middle class children to read!

No. You’re still turning my argument into something I haven’t said.

I’m not proposing a VAT system based on interrogating why an individual buys something. I’m saying private school fees are a distinct category of privately purchased educational service, and I don’t think the case for exempting that category from VAT is compelling.

The fact that private schooling is bought partly because it offers advantages is relevant to the wider justification for the exemption. It is not some universal rule that “motive determines VAT”.

You keep adding that rule yourself and then asking me to defend it.

You’re embarrassing yourself now. If you can’t follow the argument or engage with it in good faith, sit this one out and let the adults discuss it.

Nobody has argued that “anything which gives an advantage should be taxed”. You invented that premise yourself, and you’re now performing increasingly elaborate riffs about books and libraries as though they expose some contradiction.

So tell me how your argument to tax private school education doesn't apply to books.

Please.

I don’t know, lets not be so hasty here. There’s a case to be made for making books between the ages of 13 and 15 fully vatable, this is the age when children buy books precisely because they give them an advantage. Obviously, not outside these ages as they buy them for different reasons then which are more zero rated VAT compliant reasons to buy books.

That was before the UK made an absolute cunt of itself and opted out of the EU.

The rest of the EU think the UK is a joke these days.

As you said please...

My argument is that there is no compelling reason for private school fees to retain their specific VAT exemption. That does not create a general rule that every good or service which provides an educational advantage must therefore be taxed. Having a tutor is an advantage for instance.

You only get from “private school fees should be subject to VAT” to “therefore books should be too” by inserting a premise I have repeatedly told you I don’t hold: that advantage itself is what determines VAT liability.

EU countries probably have their own issues to focus on.

You’ve reached the stage of inventing a silly argument, attributing it to me, and then satirising your own invention. Knock yourself out, but it has remarkably little to do with anything I’ve actually said

Off to do other things so enjoy the VAT on the luxury purchase. Hope you can afford it, really do.

I’m just trying to understand your thought process. You are saying education services between 5 and 18 is bought partly because it offers advantages and that is relevant to the justification for taxation but it’s not a universal rule. Why is it also not justification to removing the vat exemption outside of the ages of 5 - 18 ? Are education services not also bought outside those ages to partly offer advantages?

@Araminta1004 I am in a large northern city. It has only three private schools, one GDST. The one my DC went to and the GDST are academically high achieving and seen as elite. The other is reputed to be the destination school for those not academically able whose parents prioritise pastoral care above academic attainment. The GDST school is struggling financially. I hope it survives because it's a very good school with Victorian roots.

Even with HNW families leaving the UK, there are enough families in London to keep private schools open, but fee increases will obviously freeze out families who a few years ago would have been able to afford a private education. The steep increase in fees in the two decades before the VAT addition has already shut out academic and medical families who would once have opted out of the state sector.

It’s been a really interesting insight into the mind of someone who supports this tax, thanks for taking the time to explain the logic behind it.

Actually it's not a tax it has just lost it's exemption, it could be worse they could revoke their charitable status, that would really sting - strange the EU would ban tax on education but is abundantly happy with VAT on books.

It may be a mistake to assume that people who don't support the idea that private education should be VAT-free axiomatically support it's imposition.

I suspect many are fundamentally ambivalent. And if not many then at least one (me 😀). In the scale of things I care about, it's a nothingburger.