this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024

112 points (100.0% liked)

UK Politics

3151 readers

626 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both [email protected] and [email protected] .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

[email protected] appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

112

Private school tax breaks a 'luxury', says Phillipson (www.bbc.co.uk)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Do you think the government should tax private school fees?

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Seems like a fair way to tax richer parent IMO. Given

Approximately 93% of children in the UK currently attend state schools, Phillipson said. Only the richest people are actually really attending private schools and most people are already priced out of them.

The money raised would go towards investing in state schools and teacher recruitment, Phillipson wrote in the Telegraph., external She added that £1.8bn would be raised a year by 2029-30.

That would be nice. But lets be real. Will the state schools see this money? Or will it be funneled to other things?

But the Independent Schools Council (ISC), which represents most of the UK's private schools, said the money the government claimed it would raise was an "estimate, not a fact".

Yeah, I can believe that as well.

"Labour's decision to tax education will mean thousands of hardworking parents will no longer be able to afford to send their children, including those with SEND [special educational needs and disabilities], to private school."

Oh no, a few thousand not quite rich enough kids will have to attend a state schools like 93% of other children. What ever will they do!?!?! Not sure about that call out for SEND specifically though... seems like fear mongering to me. Are there not already loads in state schools? Are state schools not equipped for this already? And will any of those extra funds be used to improve that situation at all?

[–] locahosr443 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They won't raise any money from this anyway, the new law will mean these schools will now be able to claim vat back on purchases which they couldn't before. So most of what is charged to the parents will be offset by the schools vat reclaim.

So this is just an excuse for the schools to bump the prices (old price plus vat) while reaping a little extra in vat reclaim and a totally insignificant extra tax goes to the gov.

I'm all for taxing the richest, but this shit is dumb mediabate

[–] davidagain 2 points 4 days ago

The new loopholes are indeed stupid, but the idea is sound.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago

The bit about SEND is a lie because they are exempt from the new tax. The "hardworking parents" bit always annoys me, it implies the 93% just aren't working hard enough. If that's the case I'm sure those who can't afford the tax can just work a bit harder to cover it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If private schools have better SEND provision then they should take all SEND kids.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Private schools don't because special needs kids are not profitable. They cost a lot to support. Much better to let the state deal with that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Of course. It's just hard to be sympathetic with people who complain about losing privileged access to something that is already denied to the vast majority of others through no fault of their own. What people deserve shouldn't be based on how much money their parents have. And don't forget that the reason most rich people are rich is because they successfully exploit the labour of others. Resources get automatically redistributed upwards in our economy. The wonky thing about this Labour policy though is that it looks like it punishes the 'poorer' rich people most.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Not just the richest send their kids to private schools. My kids went there, and I'm far from rich. But it was our choice to send them there, and at the same time, I support eliminating the VAT exemption. One motivation that drives middle-class parents to send their kids to private schools is to help them queue-jump when applying for university. But from a broader perspective, teaching to optimise exam scores is not the same thing as education, and hothouse flowers are not robust.

Defunding the education rat race is a good thing in the long run. Having a two-tier system just reinforces inequality.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Kids plural - taking the average private school fees today at £18k/pupil and assuming there's at least 2 gives £36k/year, if you can afford that on top of living expenses you're better off than most.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Just because you don't have a Ferrari for every day of the week doesn't mean you are not well off. The fact that you can afford to send your kids to private school kind of proves that you are richer than the vast majority of the population.

There's nothing wrong with sending your kids to private school but you need to understand how privileged you are.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago (14 children)

Just remember that because inequality, CPI inflation and property prices have been increasing, rich people have been experiencing real terms deflation. They can more than afford this. Yes, it will nudge a few marginally rich people away from private education. But if that benefits the education of poorer kids then I'm in favour of it.

It's not an important tax though and won't accomplish much economically.

We need a tax on assets. It's not fair play to hoard an inhuman amount resources and use them to crush your fellow countrymen.

load more comments (14 replies)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Education should be free. Being employed in education and good at the job should be a golden ticket in life. Education should be the greatest expense of any government. Tax the fucking rich (income, wealth, everything).

Taxing a few private schools is cute. That's it.

[–] davidagain 5 points 4 days ago

It removes a tax break enjoyed purely by rich people. Of course it should happen.

[–] Nfamwap 7 points 5 days ago

It's a start, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The reasons independents schools don’t pay VAT are historic and multifaceted.

One thing that is conveniently left out of the argument is the fact that every pupil in private education saves the state £7000 per year by not taking a place in state school.

It’s not serious economic policy, but low calibre populism from Starmer because it’s such an emotive issue.

Oddly, I would have accepted this from Corbyn who was sincere in his socialist convictions, but I don’t swallow it from this neo-liberal corporatist rat, because there are plenty of other places to garner surplus that he refuses to look at.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Fair point, would love to see the numbers on this. But it smells of trickle down economics to me. VAT is 20%, I assume this is what will be paid. And lets assume it is on the tuition that parents will now pay. Seems the average tuition paid is around £15k (rounded) for private schools. Which means about a 3k increase in the tuition. That would mean for every 3 students in a private school you could afford to send 1 to public school with room to spare. So to have a negative impact this policy would have to have a what 1 out of every 4 students to drop out of public school and return to private school? Or 25% of students give or take a lot.

But according to the article:

In October however, the ISC said some private schools reported a 4.6% drop in pupil attendance in secondary school uptake, which it attributed to parents now deciding against sending their children to private school.

Which is vastly less than 25% which should make this policy a net positive with loads of head room for my math crude back of the napkin attempt.

Thus, smells a lot like trickle down economics argument to me.

Would love to see a more concrete analysis of this.

[–] locahosr443 1 points 4 days ago

It won't be anything like a 20% uplift though as the schools will also be able to reclaim vat on purchases which they didn't before. Obviously they are not advertising this point, but I'm surprised the right wing media haven't been shouting about it this, they could just be that lazy though.

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments