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Private School Tax Breaks Aren't a Human Right

Private School Tax Breaks Aren't a Human Right

Bloomberg10-07-2025
OK class, today's topic is elasticity of demand. Raising the price of a popular service is estimated to cause 3,000 people to stop buying it. After the change, the drop in customers is observed to be 11,000. Was the elasticity: A) lower than initially estimated; B) about the same; C) deliberately understated as part of an ideological plot to punish aspiration and destroy everything that is pure and noble in Britain?
Demand for UK private-school places has proved less inelastic than the experts thought. Pupil numbers are falling more than three times as fast as the Treasury estimated they would in the 2024-25 school year. Figures released last month by the Department for Education offer the first official reading on the impact of Labour's decision to impose a 20% value-added tax on private school fees. The department's data cover the year through January, the month the tax change took effect.
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