Thread 2: VAT on school Fees- High court challenge

[EHCPerhaps]

Following on from thread 1
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5160565-vat-on-school-fees-high-court-challenge

Background to legal challenge (not yet a case):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13824931/amp/Single-mother-autistic-child-launches-High-Court-challenge-Labours-private-schools-VAT-raid-claiming-violates-daughters-right-education.html

Sorry to begin a new thread, OP, but your thread filled up very quickly!

This.

The majority of even the highest earning households in the country still use state schools.

Why should lower earning families who use Independent schools subsidise them?

@KatieL5 ,

Education is a universal benefit in this country, the same as the NHS is and the same as the winter fuel payment was.

In any universal benefit taxes from less well off people go to subsidise better off people.

Maybe we should move to means testing more and demanding more co-payments. The problem is a practical one, firstly that it is administratively very expensive and , secondly, that some of the very poor are too proud to access the benefits.

Hopefully Starmer is not relaxing somewhere in a flat and notices

It’s his bad policy and he can drop that too

And private school parents are already paying income tax on the money. Then using what's left to educate their own children.

They are taking nothing from state school children.

There is no subsidy by the state.

The correct analogy is would be those people who pay for their own medical care being required to give an extra donation to the hospital (which they already fund alongside everyone else through their taxes). Whilst the patients being cared for in the hospital complain that "it's not fair" that those people get better hospital meals (which they bought themselves)

I live in a neighbouring area to Quinn. It took me two years of concentrated effort to get an EHCP out of my LA. I am fortunate that we have two incomes coming into our house so could afford to work part time while I did this (as the process is akin to having an additional part time job, unpaid).

Kent are notoriously dfficult to deal with, have an unusual school system, and I bet it takes more than two years there. Plus tribunal waits are getting longer all the time.

I can understand why she wants to stick with the existing arrangements. It could make the difference between her DC leaving school with GCSEs or no qualifications, and I doubt she can afford to cut down her work hours. Having supportive and competent school staff is a price beyond rubies, whether private or state!

The whole EHCP thing is an utter racket and I can't understand why Panorama or another documentary maker hasn't covered it.

My DC attends a state school but I made a donation to Quinn's campaign because I think the legality of the policy should be tested.

People who dislike Labour already do, their polls have gone down due to freebies

Those who still think they’re great still will anyway

Just drop the policy and move on. They’re in power now, poor gimmicks should go.

I think politically Labour have had a rough start so it seemed pointless hanging on to policies that will bring in little money and only succeed in frustrating people. I think the policy was forced on the party by the harder left wing of the party and it was accepted as a manifesto commitment to assuage this branch.

Now Labour have a large majority and it isn't plain sailing then the VAT policy will go as there are plenty more tax hikes in store for the middle classes. Labour want to govern from the centre of the hope to maintain their majority for future parliaments so lurching into class war or ideological crusades might not be on the agenda.

There will be plenty of well rehearsed back tracking on this and it will quietly all go away.......apart from the MN threads of course.

And private school parents are already paying income tax on the money. Then using what's left to educate their own children.
They are taking nothing from state school children.
There is no subsidy by the state.

Indeed. And now we’re expected to pay a further 20% of fees, from income which has already been taxed, to help improve provision in the state sector. My family entered the private school system because state provision couldn’t educate my child. I find it really fascinating that there are higher rate tax payers out there, who are fortunate enough to have state provision which suits their children, who believe that lower rate tax payers with disabled children like me should be paying for their children’s education.

‘And now we’re expected to pay a further 20% of fees, from income which has already been taxed’

So you mean like tax on investments , inheritance tax, council tax, all VAT-in fact, every single tax bar income tax….

Nice try at missing the entire point of my post. Those taxes are for services we use, aren’t they.

@CatkinToadflax ,

Not necessarily, you are kind of missing the whole point of tax. It isn’t just billing you for what you use. It is paying what we as a democracy deem a fair contribution to all of society.

You are kind of missing the point I am making. Deliberately. I am a lower rate tax payer expected to pay for your child’s education because my child couldn’t be educated in the state sector. This is the point I am making.

"a fair contribution to all of society."

Hmm.

@Sunshineonarainyday80 ,

‘Hmm.’

Well, if you want to question our entire democratic system and prefer to live in a society a bit more like the U.S or Singapore, that is a completely different discussion.

It is paying what we as a democracy deem a fair contribution to all of society.

It is paying what we as a mob deem the extra punishment we want to impose on those poshos, to make up for annoying us.

There, fixed that for you.

Everyone knows this tax will raise no revenue. It's intention is purely to level down.

@strawberrybubblegum ,

See my post above.

I was questioning the use of the word "fair". Not "democracy".

"Tax on investments , inheritance tax, council tax, all VAT" are imposed on everyone, not simply on an unpopular group (well, apart from inheritance tax).

Also, they don't distort behaviour to the point of making a loss. They raise money. Which is what taxes should do.

Unlike the tax on private schools, which has been introduced to change behaviour for ideological reasons plus schadenfreude towards an unpopular minority.

And there's an important difference between democracy and mob rule.

@strawberrybubblegum ,

‘And there's an important difference between democracy and mob rule.’

There is, but if you think a democratically elected government imposing a tax a few of the wealthy don’t like constitutes mob rule, I am not sure you understand the difference.

@drspouse - the fact that Councils get away with rejections and force people to appeal to buy themselves time and save money in the process (letting kids spiral and parents despair and those without the energy/funds give up), itself should be illegal and therefore is well worth going to the High Court over. Let’s assume that someone can prove that a high percentage were rejected ab initio but then a very high percentage passed on appeal, well worth a judicial review in my opinion. If a Council actually “knows” that an appeal is likely to be successful they are not meant to be rejecting in the first place. If this is happening, it is important to get to the bottom of it.

Despite this government being democratically elected, they are encouraging and taking legitimacy from the mob.

@drspouse Quinn couldn’t appeal right now. She wouldn’t still have the right of appeal. But making another EHCNA request then appealing if necessary would be wise, IMO. Even if that is as well as the current case. However, an EHCP wouldn’t be in place for next term even if she didn’t have to appeal. And there would potentially be 3 appeals between now and a finalised EHCP naming her preferred independent placement.

@Araminta1003 JR can sometimes be possible for individual refusals. It depends on the specifics of the individual case. For refusals, you wouldn’t be able to JR about an individual refusal based on the LAs behaviour as a whole with other cases. And Quinn wouldn’t be able to anyway, the refusal was too long ago.

@strawberrybubblegum ,

Oh I see, the great unwashed 93% who are sending their gamma to epsilon semi-moron offspring to those other types of schools-the mob!

Don’t worry, I don’t think Starmer is trying to establish a mob run dictatorship or abolish elections, you can vote again in less than five years.