PS VAT - international reaction

[AlbionLass]

France and Germany attack UK plan to levy VAT on international school fees
Proposal to impose value added tax in the Budget risks damaging diplomatic ties, ambassadors say.

France and Germany have hit out at Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to levy value added tax on private school fees, saying the policy risks forcing hundreds of children out of international schools and damaging diplomatic relations with the UK.

I wonder how this will square with wanting to be closer to the EU?

The policy is very poorly thought through. The most stupid thing is that Labour didnt seem to realise that any capital spend could be clawed back and the big private rich schools are far more likely to build £200k plus buildings so let hope that they had that in their calculations!

Also, I believe anything over 15% of pupils coming back into the state system will make zero of any 'gains'. Of course the usual suspsects will bleat that there are places in schools but ae they within communting distance of where you live and are they failing schools with uninterested staff.

Would you send your children to a failing school to keep the numbers up? No, I didnt think so! Or maybe these complainers think you ned to move to the part of the country that does have space??

Shame on them and not taking into account any SEN kids either funded by the LA or by the parents themselves. People who dont have any knowledge of private schools seem to think if you go to one parents can afford ANY increase in fees.

French diplomats won’t pay the VAT if it is in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights. They just will not pay it. And the French Government will get involved and the Labour Party will have to fudge it somehow.

The most stupid thing is that Labour didnt seem to realise that any capital spend could be clawed back and the big private rich schools are far more likely to build £200k plus buildings so let hope that they had that in their calculations!

What is your evidence that a group of educated public servants didn’t understand a basic principle of a long established tax?

I worked with public sector in a senior role as a supplier for years and quite honestly I wouldnt trust them to cut my toenails! They would go for cheap and cheerful, take months and months to make a decision and even when technology was very old and not fit for purpose (no maintenance) they still insisted on using it. They often used to ignore the most basic rules - I wont mention the very big central government dept that was using old kit because they couldnt make a decison to save their life. They were warned 3 years the kit was end of life.

Do I think they are educated? They are certainly running cottage idustries. Why make quick decisions when they can spin it out.

It’s just another category to add to the list of things that Labour

a) didn’t consider or foresee

b) don’t care about

c) will not adjust for

d) will do significant long term damage and will make no money.

This policy will be so damaging. It was so idiotic and simplistic to just think “tax the rich”. It appealed to people who just thought that someone else would pay and that the rich were evil.

well, the government will need to hand over £5millioj to Eton and similar to many schools. Idiots.

And the ultimate irony is that all of the education needed by a child is free on YouTube. It’s just that people can’t really be arsed.

Science channels such as Freescience lessons, cognito, malmesbury etc got both my kids grade 9 in all their sciences at GCSE.

All of these French and German people that are coming over with their kids and using international schools for a bit - these are people who are arriving and paying massive amounts into our economy. Spending on rent, spending on whatever they buy - food, goods, education etc.

It’s a net loss for us if we piss them off so much that they don’t come.

“And the ultimate irony is that all of the education needed by a child is free on YouTube. It’s just that people can’t really be arsed.“

Nah, French kids want to do the French curriculum. They can’t be arsed with British style GCSEs and memory cramming.

The policy is a breach of the Rights of the Child. Some children from military families have already written in. French/German kids will be next etc.

Ideological policies have to be proportional. This one clearly is not.

Labour dont seem to realise what a working person is, what its going to do with employers behaviour if they start increasing NI but as long as the bloated public sector are OK with their protected pensions that will be fine! Dont they realise they are making a bad situation even worse!

They are simply chancers just like the Tories. Deluded with no real plan.

I meant all the arguments over private schools etc.

I didn’t mean it in relation to French/German kids - I know they’re aiming to go back into their own curriculum system so are learning different stuff. Hence the school.

@MichaelandKirk Taking one example of a senior Labour person… Your evidence that an ex DPP, with his law degree and many years of political and legal experience, doesn’t know something pretty basic about how VAT works… is that you once worked with some people in public sector and found them a bit too focussed on the cheap and cheerful?

We clearly have a different definition of evidence.

So you are OK charging VAT for all users of private education? SEN, military families?

Starmer is out of his depth and he was the one riling the media with tales of doom and gloom and frightening the market in he run up to the budget. The man cannot even say what a working person is (for all his law degree and many many years of experience (!). See that they are going to throw money at the NHS with no negotiation of them sorting themselves out before they get the money. Same old Labour. Wanting the state to dominate and those lovely final salary pension schemes for more and more people

Ah, I see you are arguing a different point. Presumably because you have no evidence, in fact, that Starmer and his team are so ignorant of how VAT works that capital reclaim was a surprise.

Noted.

@Araminta1003

Please don’t simply assert that the policy is in breach of the Rights of the Child, when you know the test case has not been heard.

bmmagazine.co.uk/news/labours-vat-on-private-school-fees-faces-high-court-challenge-over-human-rights-concerns/?amp

Streeting seems to think the schools can not pass the tax on so I don't think the insight is high. Same with the nom dom pledge which didn't make it

I have no doubt Labour just go with ideas without impact assessments, this is already known anyway

Plus just general errors which have seen them plummet in polls and ratings. Off mn there's plenty of criticism

Shelia - you seem very keen to big up Starmer and co. Why do you think his ratings are plummenting massively?

yes, if Private school was only about GCSE grades

Really? Your dictionary must have a different definition of “big up” to mine as well as that pesky different definition of “evidence”.

Not convinced by this. The U.K. remains a very attractive destination for immigrants - as per huge numbers of immigrants coming here each year since the last few decades. VAT on schools will not make a blind bit of difference. The number of Germans and French pissed off at this will be minuscule (and really irrelevant to the policy-making).

You sound insane. If they don’t pay it, their kids won’t be able to attend the schools.

Obviously, Macron is not going to get involved in this.

I doubt much is relevant to the policy making. Not financial sense, nor care for SEN, or children or much at all beyond some red meat. No impact assessment and some clueless lines put out there by Labour

It is though.

What do you think kids come out with? Gold bars or something?

You go to school, you do your work. You faff around with a few outdated pieces of bollocks and a load of sport, but that's completely irrelevant in the greater scheme of things.

My ds went right through private school (SEN).

Not sure what you're thinking he came out with. GCSEs and A Levels and a little gang of mates. Gone to uni just like everyone else who goes to uni.

BTW plenty in his school fail maths and english GCSEs. You have to do the work, just like anywhere else.

Well done on totally missing the point.
I didn't send my DC Private just to get good GCSE grades and neither did a lot of other parents.
Perhaps some Private schools are nothing but exam factories but ours isn't.