To have though of a fairer way to fund state education than VAT on private?

[wlakaaf]

State schools are in desperate need of funding.

Money needs raising.

Instead of sticking 20% onto private fees - when those people are already paying 100% of the costs for educating their child, how about this:

Parents of children currently in state schools ought to contribute to their education on a means tested basis. There would be no argument over means, it would be a simple reference to the council tax band of the house you live in. We have bands A-H. I would propose that people in band A-F pay nothing. People in band G pay a fixed charge per year and people in band H pay a higher fixed charge per year.

Keir Starmer has used money to buy a massively expensive house, worth in the region of £2m, in the very tight catchment of a lovely state primary. This is buying privilege, same as buying private education. So why does he get away without paying?

Entirely this. Where does it fucking end?

How about we have a state that allocates meaningful school funding per child - all children - and means test what parents can afford for private. Then more children will be able to select special schools.

The problem here is that our government doesn’t value children, old people, teachers, nurses, etc pretty much anything that isn’t business.

Here is another idea. Tax the big tech companies that benefit from tax havens like Amazon and Facebook.

How do you know it’s not equality/inequality itself?

There's no mechanism for that to be the case.

And if it’s the factors that correlate with them, what are those factors?

I wrote a major one for each in my post.

And if it’s not equality/inequality that correlate directly, then all things being equal, wouldn’t we want as much equality as possible?

Is fairness that everyone should have equal wealth?

Or is fairness that we are free individuals who don't belong to the state, and we should benefit from our own abilities and endeavours?

Make parents who choose private schools pay twice for education and then tax them an extra 20% out of income that they’ve already been taxed on at marginal rates of up to 90%, and see who is left standing when the dust clears.

That sounds to me like a concerted effort to be seen to try to get rid of private education and parental choice.

The worst of it is, the Labour leadership doesn’t even believe this wanton disruption will really net-benefit existing state school pupils. This is one of those red meat policies politicians throw out there to distract their extremist supporters from the fact that in everything else they do, their policies are going to be almost exactly the same as the previous administration.

Are they banning private schools or merely expecting them to pay vat (as the poorly funded state schools do)?

To be fair, the quality of tantrums from the private school sector is first class. I don't think I've ever seen such a broad range of hyperbole in an election period.

You're just deliberately trying to wind us up now, aren't you?

Surely anyone who has read these threads has understood the basics by now!

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State schools do pay VAT on the things they buy, but get a refund on that VAT from the government.

Private schools do also pay VAT on the things they buy, but get no refund. So they are paying more than state schools.

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State school parents don't pay VAT on the fees they pay, because they pay £0 and instead the government pays the school for their child's education (out of taxes we all pay).

Private school parents currently don't pay VAT on the fees they pay because education is exempt from VAT. In fact, until Brexit it was illegal for VAT to be charged on education. Now that EU laws can be ignored, Labour intend to move away from EU best practice and introduce VAT on education.

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Hth.

Fairness lies somewhere in between. Obviously people should be rewarded for their achievements, but in the context of a system that gives equality of access to the opportunities to achieve.
A society that facilitates the passing of advantage down the generations and where life chances rest more on an accident of birth than ones abilities and hard work is never going to be fair.
A certain level of this is inevitable obviously, but if we want to avoid a society where we 'benefit' at the highest levels from only the input of the same demographic, and where wealth is used to elevate mediocrity, while a huge pool of potential is overlooked and untapped, then we should really be trying to minimise this as much as we can.
Obviously this will always be a challenge as those with advantage will always be reluctant to shift up on the bench.

@jannier

You asked for links re boomers being net beneficiaries.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmworpen/59/5905.htm

This report said: What research exists suggests that today’s young will be net contributors to the welfare state, while the baby boomer generation will be net beneficiaries. The effect is likely to have been exacerbated by policy decisions to protect pensioner benefits while targeting welfare cuts on working age payments. The limits of that approach have been reached.”

This has come to fruition and continues to be the case nearly a decade on.

Since socialism, marxism and cakeism have all been mentioned, there is a notion from somewhere that goes

"from each according to their ability, to each according to their need".

or something like that.

Hilarious.
The argument for not paying VAT has always been that we don’t charge VAT on education. Traditionally all schools were charities. You do realise that, today, a lot of private schools are owned by private equity - i.e. are a business with shareholders?

As for charging for state schools 🙄It is a legal obligation to educate your child. Most parents can’t home school so have no option but to send them to school. 96% of the population don’t use private education and you want them to start paying for state provision so private parents don’t have to pay VAT on a service that they choose to use.

I’m off to get popcorn before I start to read the responses….

Surely, the real question here is why are we paying VAT on anything now we are out of the EU ?

Why is it unfair? Other services pay VAT why shouldn't private schools?
I see no reason why private schools shouldn't make the necessary savings to pay the VAT it doesn't necessarily have to be passed onto the parents
. State schools have managed to cope with reduced budgets for years. It really isn't beyond the realms of possibilities for private schools to do the same.

Surely, the real question here is why are we paying VAT on anything now we are out of the EU ?

We have always had to pay a purchase tax on goods. Even before we were in the EU we paid a tax on goods bought. It just wasn't called VAT.
It's an important income stream for Government. The money doesn't go to the EU it goes to the Government to pay for services in the same way other tax does

Well yes. I am old enough to remember when purchase tax became VAT because of "the common market".

My point stands. This thread has wasted a small nuclear power stations output of energy around something which appears to be treated as more holy that the saints themselves. No one has asked why we can't get rid of VAT or reframe the entire circus rather than just change the colour of the tent.

So why do we need to have VAT now we are out of the EU. Is it holy writ somewhere ?

Why do we need to have Ofsted come to that ?

If there are any marxists on this thread, then they are very timid. Mouseists more like.

But then again a defining feature of UK politics is a general lack of imagination. Which becomes more entrenched as inequality grows.

Rubbish. State schools are VAT neutral: they can claim back all the VAT they pay on goods and services (through their LA), and of course they don’t charge any VAT.

And that has never worked successfully.

Not by accident, but because communism is a fundamentally flawed ideology, which results in a lack of personal incentives and also the inefficiency of centralisation (which results in the wrong choices being made wrt maximising benefit) taken to the extreme.

I hadn't come across cakeism before though. I've looked it up and I'm quite disappointed that it doesn't actually involve eating cake!

*In very small groups of people it can work, where people can keep track and it's based more on personal relationships and trust.

But it's never worked when formalised into a political system.

Is this why we ended up with Brexit? Because people thought the EU was responsible for VAT?

There’s no VAT on state schools !
or on any education currently

It’s a simple question of whether it’s moral to tax education. If it is deemed so then all types of private education will be up for grabs including Universities, private revision centres etc.

If it is taxed then we’ll be living in a country that taxes education but not chocolate body paint

The other issue of course is whether it actually benefits anyone at all.
Which most analysts deem it won’t.
It will also make private schools even more elite.

The main problem with the way we work in this country is that each working generation supports those on benefits, nhs, schools etc ie beneficiaries.
If the working generation is large ie boomers individually they have less to pay towards a smaller beneficiaries group
Today the working generation is smaller ( a reduction of 140,000 births approx every year since the boomer years ). The smaller working generation now need to support a larger beneficiaries group.

All Governments have had since the 1950s to see this coming.
None did anything in preparation.

As an aside those generations who have taken out less are those born before the welfare state and those who received less but have had to work passed the old state pension age once it was raised. The raising of the state pension age is/ was a way of attempting to level things up.

Exactly this…

I imagine private colleges will be next. They might even be slipped into the first 100 days without even being aware. They are private schools and some don’t even offer degrees. They are somewhere between sixth form and Universities. I get a feeling private nurseries will be fine as they are childcare until aged 3 and the hours can be state funded (I know not fully but for the sake this issues let’s say they are “state funded”).
Interesting times!

How else do you think the country could raise the £170 BILLION that VAT generates?

Would you prefer income tax was doubled?