Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 6

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuation of previous threads to discuss VAT on independent school fees.

Surely you’ve noticed by now I criticise every flavour of politician? 🤣

You did just say you’d like to pay more tax apparently.

It would be asked of you. Just not others as wanted on these threads.

The problem in societies with very unequal wealth distribution is that nobody believes anybody is contributing their fair share, and they all have different ways of assessing what counts as a valid contribution and what is fair.

I was interested in one comment made by Simon Reeves the other day in “Scandinavia with Simon Reeves,” where he compared what Norway had done with its oil money versus what the UK did with money from North Sea Oil, and how one of us ended up with a sovereign wealth fund worth trillions and the other…

I said I would be happy to if everyone else in my band were and it were imposed. The difference is pretty clear.

Ok then that’s this thread for Labour.

Same with me, but I have the feeling @EasternStandard has a weird take on how taxation, communities, society, mathematics and pretty much everything else works.

But that’s the problem - I think this discussion would be more productive if it focused on cause and effect and did not stray into what secret, machiavellian plot Rachel Reeves and Bridget Phillipson might have cooked up between themselves to destroy the British economy through spite and vindictiveness. There is no need to make it personal in order to critique it. If you make it tribal, your tribe is too small to win. If you make it reasoned, you might get more people off the fence, one way or the other.

Exactly. I've said this all along. All the talk about spite and envy, tribalism and speculation about a machiavellian sub-plot detract from the salient aspects of the arguments against.

lol not that complicated.

These threads contain pro VAT posters saying you pay so I wanted to see if they’d stump up at any point.

It seems they’ll say no chance.

Something about anti democratic to critique a policy earlier which is odd.

Of course people can criticise.

They can do what they want of course but when it all starts to kick off about chess competitions and other irrelevant nonsense it just smacks of sour grapes and no substance.

I doubt the few posters who keep opposing anything not for VAT will change due to any post anyway.

I’ve started a thread 7 as there’s no sign of this running out of steam….

Am planning on doing a DSAR of my county council to ask for numbers of secondary applicants stating they have accepted an independent school offer, vs the total number of applicants, for the last 6 years. Will be interesting to see if the proportion has gone down and if so by how much.

Well yes, they could. They could increase basic rate tax - our existing means-tested tax mechanism- and give private school parents a voucher/tax credit to cover the child's entitlement to state-financed education. Sounds good to me!

Or alternatively, they could not give private school parents a voucher and just offer their children spaces in state schools, which sounds good to more people.

That's not a solution to @easternstandard 's proposal to have the extra money for state schools funded by the rich parents who make use of them.

You've had all sorts of reasons why that couldn't possibly work. For practical reasons, of course. People who pay feeling they have more say etc.

This mechanism solves that problem.

Turns out, it's just that you just don't want to pay yourself. Just as @easternstandard said.

Good idea. There was some strong opposition, including stuff about democracy and being able to criticise parties but others shouldn’t.

You’ve found a good way to do it.

Now identify your rich parents - the ones whose grandparents paid the deposit on their house; those who own their home; those with lots of savings; those with big incomes; those who earn all their money on the black market and don’t declare it? As always, it’s much less complicated and up front to tax the sitting ducks - those seen to be paying for something legitimate, for which we have VAT.

And really, since all parties have good and bad policies, it’s generally always more interesting and constructive to criticise the policy than the party.

I thought you did already@Walkaround

Why ask others to stop what you do?

Here’s and easy solution for you @Walkaround, it’s called a progressive tax system and it’s what we already have for multiple taxes! Take your pick: income tax, CGT, stamp duty, IHT (arguably).

I know multiple families who have moved specifically to get in catchment houses for our local outstanding state secondary. The houses cost between about £1m and £2.5m

I’m still struggling to understand so maybe you can explain it to me: why shouldn’t these people be asked to pay extra for the service that they are using and instead the entire extra burden be placed on people who are by definition not using the service and might be much less well-off?

Why use VAT on school fees as a proxy for wealth? Why not just tax wealth itself, so tax all richer people more (as per the progressive tax systems we already have in place)?

The only answer I’ve had on here is that it would be less popular with voters. Which is a woeful explanation but at least an honest one. Better than trying to tie yourself in pretzels justifying the unjustifiable….

Or alternatively, they could not give private school parents a voucher and just offer their children spaces in state schools, which sounds good to more people.

Indeed. My child wasn’t offered this.

According to the FT and Bloomberg, Reeves has to reconsider the non dom inheritance tax grab as they are leaving en masse, costing the economy jobs and billions. So get ready for the next u-turn/watering down.
Sadly, school children will probably be the last they u-turn on as they do not matter. They will let quite a lot of private schools go bust first and ruin the lives of countless children with SEND and in exam years. Shame on these politicians.

Agree they will cling on to this because when all the other policies prove disastrous they need one thing to differentiate.

That's really not good!

I didn't expect that: someone on here posted an article looking at previous non dom taxing which suggested it wouldn't have too much impact on ultra hnw individuals, so I hoped it would be OK. Although I didn't actually realise Labour had included IHT in the non dom changes. That is pretty outrageous, tbh - and I'm not surprised it has backfired. 🙄

Who knew: people with options do actually change their behaviour when a blatantly unreasonable tax is levied.

And people warning about it beforehand are actually trying to stop stupid, preventable harm.