Tax on school fees

[CheekyUser]

of course it won’t affect the really wealthy but we have three kids at private school and we are now going to withdraw them all. We will see them through the remainder of this school year and from September we have secured places at local state schools. When the alternative is free why would we carry on drawing down on our mortgage and sacrificing holidays and be taxed for doing so. Let the state pay.

So glad your experience belies the stereotype!

Common sense belies the stereotype.
6 good secondaries in our city, with space, and yet 5 private secondaries. One of which charges £55k… it’s not the state of the state schools making the wealthy try to buy more privilege

Send your kids where you like, but no more tax breaks.

Exemption isn't a tax break. Otherwise you are getting tax breaks on food, utility bills etc

Wow you are lucky to have so many good state schools. One might say privileged

Why, thank you comrade I have and I will! But surely if you think really hard you can see that you're the one who is getting the tax break 🤔no?

If I’m getting a tax break by not forking out for private school, then sure.

You are deluded if they think Labour will improve education. They only seek to destroy.

https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/labour-schools-bill-is-timid-education-policy

"Labour has no clear vision for improving education"

You don't understand that people who don't have children and people who use private schools pay taxes that subsidise your state schools? 😂

‘You are deluded if they think Labour will improve education. They only seek to destroy.’

yes dear. Obviously any government in power seeks only to destroy the education of its citizens and their children, how else to achieve economic growth??

Well they are hindering economic growth too through the NI rise so there you go dear

If your children are at state school, their education is 100% subsidised by the taxpayer.

Each child who is not subsidised by the taxpayer is gifting every single tax payer a slight tax break: money which the taxpayer would have had to pay in extra taxes (to subsidise the child's education, as yours is) is not required. Your taxes are lower than they would be otherwise. A tax break.

You're welcome.

(strictly, I'm also getting a tax break for each of the other private school children. But since I'm giving their parents a tax break in return by paying for my own child's education it cancels out. But you don't, so it doesn't cancel out for you)

Only time will tell in that one. Perhaps the sky isn’t actually falling in…

Using the same metric she judged Truss on, Reeves has already crashed the economy. I am no Tory supporter but Reeves was baying for Truss's blood and the gilts are in a worse situation now! She is stiffling growth and investment via increase in NI.

Also highest government borrowing since 1998! Yes it's all going swimmingly

Also highest government borrowing since 1998! Yes it's all going swimmingly

🤣🤣🤣

and it hasn’t even been a year.
Labour has form for this………..how easily everyone forgets 🤯

🥴

"yes dear. Obviously any government in power seeks only to destroy the education of its citizens and their children, how else to achieve economic growth??" - Their policy shows that they are prepared to sacrifice the education of their citizens in favour of "socking it to the rich".

In many other countries, the state budget allocated for each child's education follows that child. If the parents choose to send their child to a private school, their child's portion of the state education budget is paid to the private school and the parents pay the top up for the additional costs of being privately educated. If the Labour Government wants a "fair education for all", then that has to be the fairest way to do it.

No they'd never do that, it would be antithetical to the whole concept of universal provision. Just like with healthcare you can't combine the "free bit" of what is available on the nhs with a private "top up" with treatment for the same issue but have to either pay private 100% or stay with the NHS (you can still have separate additional treatment but eg you can't combine paying for an operation privately with staying on an NHS ward or vice versa)

The reason being that this would be a slippery slope - if people can readily top up an inadequate state provision to something acceptable then it becomes normal for the free state provision to default to something that's barely 80% of adequate and it becomes normal for most people to top up the last 20% and most people are happy enough, but the poorest and most vulnerable children get left with the shitty un-topped-up option.

Universal provision has to work with the basic free state provision being 100% good enough with no need for topping up, funded adequately through a properly fair tax system based on means to pay. Private education could readily be all but abolished simply by making state provision so good that you'd only choose private for reasons of snobbery or a preferment of unnecessaru luxuries like gyms swimming pools and equestrian centres rather than (as is currently the case) feeling that your child would not be able to access an adequate education at all with the state options that are available in some cases.

Similarly private healthcare ought to be unnecessary and used only by those who have money to burn and want a more comfy bed and a nicer room in hospital, rather than being forced into it because the alternative is 18 months on a waiting list in pain. And it wouldn't surprise me if VAT on private healthcare is next on the plans, marketed as a way of funnelling more money to the NHS.

Agree
I think this way of working is much better.
It also means parents have far more choice and everyone benefits from their taxes paid for education rather than some people pay twice.
of course those that don’t have children do pay for something they will personally never need but in the long run children pay taxes down the line.

”And it wouldn't surprise me if VAT on private healthcare is next on the plans, marketed as a way of funnelling more money to the NHS.”

That would be a terrible idea as you would likely get health tourism across the border to eg France, Germany etc where paying privately out of your own pocket is already often cheaper than in the UK! By the way…

UK borrowing rates now highest level since 1998. Higher than after theTruss mini budget - growth flatlined since Reeves took over. Not looking great so far..

Have you ever looked at the OBRs accuracy rate?