The most depressing part of Labour’s policy of imposing 20% VAT on private education is that the pollsters tell us that it enjoys majority public support.
The nonsense, is the prejudice that fee paying parents enjoy ‘tax breaks’ that are unfair and should be removed. On the contrary, the principle to which we have hitherto adhered is that Education is not taxed.
A ‘tax break’ would exist if fee paying parents received a reduction in their income tax for not taking up a place for their children in a state school. And, of course, no such tax break exists, nor should it exist. (After all, we all pay tax that funds education irrespective of whether we have any children at all).
To levy business rates and VAT on some parents who are already making enormous sacrifices, but not on others -equally making sacrifices in their own way, is unfair.
In the end it comes down to the expedient that those fee paying parents are judged to be sufficiently well off and so can afford to pay even more. In reality this is often not the case. Many children attend private schools because there is insufficient provision for their learning difficulties in maintained schools. In any event, the honest way to proceed would be to increase income tax on high incomes, rather than a impose discriminatory tax on education.
The ‘tweets’ issued by the Secretary of State about state schools needing teachers more than private schools need ’embossed letterheads’ gave the real game away: this is a policy informed by envy and class warfare.
The nonsense, is the prejudice that fee paying parents enjoy ‘tax breaks’ that are unfair and should be removed. On the contrary, the principle to which we have hitherto adhered is that Education is not taxed.
A ‘tax break’ would exist if fee paying parents received a reduction in their income tax for not taking up a place for their children in a state school. And, of course, no such tax break exists, nor should it exist. (After all, we all pay tax that funds education irrespective of whether we have any children at all).
To levy business rates and VAT on some parents who are already making enormous sacrifices, but not on others -equally making sacrifices in their own way, is unfair.
In the end it comes down to the expedient that those fee paying parents are judged to be sufficiently well off and so can afford to pay even more. In reality this is often not the case. Many children attend private schools because there is insufficient provision for their learning difficulties in maintained schools. In any event, the honest way to proceed would be to increase income tax on high incomes, rather than a impose discriminatory tax on education.
The ‘tweets’ issued by the Secretary of State about state schools needing teachers more than private schools need ’embossed letterheads’ gave the real game away: this is a policy informed by envy and class warfare.