Indeed, critics are suggesting that the VAT raid is not worth the hassle involved to raise the £1.5bn a year Labour says it will bring in.
Leading tax experts this week warned that the Government’s definition of a private school was so vague, it could cover universities, forcing them to also levy 20pc VAT on fees from January.
And try defining private education in a manner that doesn’t include universities…..
It was never about raising revenue, that was the excuse not the reason. There’s a large number of senior Labour people, including Reeves, who want to abolish the sector. Increasing revenue would have been a bonus.
See also grammar schools & fox hunting for other examples of Labour’s penchant for spiteful legislation.
Starmer has just spent £20k of someone else’s money to give his boy a privileged opportunity to swot for his exams. Would such manoeuvres be subject to VAT in future?
BiND: It’s not (simply) spite; it’s about control. Same as the NHS.
They might get round the problem by defining VAT liability by age of pupil.
But that could conflict with the Equalities Act or the ECHR or something.
Oh, what a hoot! I wonder who their scriptwriter is?
Wasn’t there some discussion about the VAT raid itself being a breach of ECHR and rights to education etc.
@Sam Duncan,
I saw that fish & chip story on the Beeb website, as you say more about control than health.
Fruit & veg is from and centre of every supermarket entrance, if people won’t buy it there they certainly aren’t going to buy it in the chippy. And even if they did, it’s not going to make much difference even at the margins.
Meanwhile, as NHS bosses are fretting about deep fried Brussels sprouts people are queuing on trolleys in corridors and in ambulances at A&E.
We need a new circle of hell for them.
Even the 3Rs of traditional education could conceivably be taught as ‘training’ to get round the VAT regs.
Your honour, my training academy charges £5k a term to train young people how to do the arithmetic they’ll need to settle a bet, calculate an oven temperature and duration for a joint, and how much less weight a joist with imperfections can bear.
-That sounds like education, so VAT is due-
No your honour, we can also train lawyers and do so without educating them in any way.
@BniC – “Wasn’t there some discussion about the VAT raid itself being a breach of ECHR and rights to education etc.”
Not quite. It’s contraty to the EU rule that there cannot be VAT on education. But one of our Brexit “benefits” is that we are no longer subject to that rule.