Much as readers of the FT may feel the pain, the introduction of VAT on school fees like the position of IHT on unspent DC pots is not a Winter Fuel issue for the country. I dare say the readers of the Daily Telegraph are outraged of the Times but frankly school fees and inheritance tax are low hanging fruit for a Government looking for a way to afford ambitious plans to defend the country and offer us help.

Yesterday, three judges threw out the three cases being put up by independent schools,
Three separate challenges were heard together.

The first, funded by the Independent Schools Council (ISC), which represents more than 1,300 independent UK schools, was brought on behalf of seven families.

The second was brought by children with special needs, and the third by a group of Christian faith schools and families of children who attend such institutions.

Responding to the ruling, Julie Robinson, chief executive of the ISC, said:

“This is an unprecedented tax on education and it was right that its compatibility with human rights law was tested.”

She said the ISC

“is carefully considering the court’s judgment and next steps. Our focus remains on supporting schools, families and children.”

Her support is limited by comparison to the pressure of those to get winter fuel back to pensioners.

I have written of inheritance tax on pension pots and I can see no great interest in stopping the Government imposing it in a couple of years.

The reality for those who have wealth- even if it is tied up in illiquid assets such as farms, is that the country really doesn’t care much. There will be ways to mortgage to meet the inheritance bills where they cannot be afforded and there will be the option to sell. Farms like most businesses have to carry debt.

As for the lucky children who inherit a house from the parents, there may be reasons to pass the property between generations when one generation has gone.

I feel slightly hypocritical as I have been to private school and so has my son. I am happy to say the schools did neither of us damage but we would have been different following a state pension and I suspect that we would have been both better and worse. My pension would surely have been better had I not paid 10 years of school fees.

I guess I might play a trick with my DC pension and pay the IHT on my mother’s house if she dies soon. But I am not a believer in such thinking, my pension is to become retirement income at the same time as I get the State Pension – 2028. 2028 is the date when IHT talk will be as loud as the talk is of school fees this year. People will be thinking of houses.

Houses are emotive, they carry memories and children have difficulty disposing of memories but these are nice problems relative to the nasty problems of poverty.

As for the tax itself, there is strong sense among the nation that there is no harm in clipping the wealth of some families at points when money passes through generation and the idea that rich people have the right to hide their wealth in private pension pots is ludicrous.

Pensions are for spending not for hoarding as a tax dodge.

Wealth managers have issued a “health warning” over the costs and complexities of investment vehicles designed to reduce inheritance tax. It follows a flood of inquiries from affluent clients over setting up family investment companies, or Fics, to cut IHT after chancellor Rachel Reeves expanded the regime in the Autumn Budget last year.

The wealthy agonise, the public chortle about the stupidity. Within 10 minutes of posting, this post had appeared

Don’t get your knickers in a twist over VAT and IHT, it is the weekend!

So as the first week of summer draws to an end, I will press send and remind myself that this is not a good time to be very rich and a rather better time to be struggling and poor.

School fees are to be paid with VAT and there is no doubt the pain will be great.  But if the pain is thought to be necessary, then like inheritance tax, it is best not avoided.

The country doesn’t care about “VAT on private school fees” or “pension IHT protection”, they care about the £200 lost to a pensioner or  £300 if you are over 80.