Vat on Independent school fees?

[Ashton Moss Messi]

But then even those figures are bullshit, because the majority of scholarships (66%) are not given for academic ability, they're either given for sporting or musical talent, or simply for the children of teachers at the school. And we can all probably guess what sort of sporting or musical talent is rewarded. They're probably not giving it to a talented footballer or boxer, are they? Most scholarships go to middle and upper-class parents. And that's because a lot of the scholarships don't cover the full fees, so even with a scholarship, you've still got to have a few quid to pay for it. The also use accounting tricks to artificially increase the 'cost' of these scholarships, allowing them to justify giving fewer of them.

Exactly.
The "charitable" status is portrayed to be because they support "the poor" but in practice, they don't.
For charitable status they have to benefit a "sufficient section of the public" according to the legislation.
The application of that is flexible to say the least.

My point is it isn't just schools as charities, or other organisations as charities, but the whole tax system that needs reform.

 

[PragueBlue]

It's one of the least controversial Labour policies around.

It only appears marginally controversial because so many in the media and politics, who are commenting on it, went to, or have kids at private school.

The vast majority of the population have almost no sympathy at all for the families affected.

View attachment 111834

How much sympathy, if any, would you feel towards families who send their children to private schools if they end up paying more because VAT was added to private school fees? | Daily Question

How much sympathy, if any, would you feel towards families who send their children to private schools if they end up paying more because VAT was added to private school fees?

yougov.co.uk

Not surprising really. People aren't likely to have much sympathy for people who can afford to do some things that they themselves can't, be that private schools or cars/holidays etc.

 

[metalblue]

Why is that a wow?

Do these schools pay much attention to technical education already, even though the kids are boarding and spending the majority of their time on site? Wouldn't woodwork be a productive thing to do in evening or weekend classes?

Or do they spend a disproportionate amount on sport compared to the relative prospects of them becoming professional sports people or coaches?

Eton still insists on playing two archaic forms of football.

I'd bet even successful plumbers who can afford to send their kids to private schools don't want their kids to be plumbers.

I just want my kids to be happy. Like everyone I suspect. If those I sent to private school want to be plumbers I genuinely couldn’t give a shit - would save me a few quid that’s for sure!! Once you leave school everything sort of levels anyway - youngest is over at York and her course cohort has one other girl who went private rest went to state - so they’ve all ended up in the same place. I’d say that self belief private schools instil and not tolerating kids who fuck around is the biggest difference but the kids still need the right aptitude to succeed, just like everyone else really. Once you get to the elite schools of course the families are properly minted and any kid no matter how much a fuckwit will still likely have a decent career and life - but for the vast majority that go to private school it’s really not the slam dunk people think it is.

Woodwork? Yes they did that at school. Cooking as well.

Sport? Outside of rowing there wasn’t anything else they did that state schools didn’t do. Rowing is a hard sport mind. She was on the river on a Saturday at 6am and they trained 3 days a week on river and 2 in gym.

They didn’t have etiquette or elocution lessons or learn how to ride horses and hunt foxes mind ;)

The learning environment was better and she had access to equipment state schools could probably only dream about such as 3D printers in tech for example.

 

[oldius]

It doesn’t make it a luxury good.

Of course it is a luxury, though I respect that not everyone who chooses to privately educate their child bathes in pound notes every night.
Regardless, the question is should VAT be applied to fees and I can see no justification for private school fees to be exempt.
As for charitable status, I think that is a nonsense.

 

[metalblue]

I'm not sure that having £14k of after tax income available to spend on school fees, is compatible with saying that "most [parents who send kids to private school] aren't loaded".

I realise that people on high incomes, often don't feel well off, but to even have the choice of spending that kind of money on a child's education is way beyond most UK households.

This is why I say let parents pay for it ahead of tax. Make it less beyond the means of most as it would be “costing” you £9k a year not £14k. Same for childcare costs and a lot of people are paying best part of £10k or more a year - at the moment the amount parents can save via salary sacrifice isn’t enough.

 

[bluenova]

The main issue of course is that the families that will be most affected by it are the ones that are most deserving of sympathy. The people who never have a holiday and drive a shitty old car so they can send their kids to private school instead. The actual elite won't give much of a shit about a 20% increase in costs. Hell, it might even help keep some of the riff-raff out.

I suspect that's a vanishingly small group.

I can believe that many people make sacrifices to pay for private education, and that a lot more are aware of just how much more they could do if they weren't paying £15k a kid for schooling. However, I am not convinced there are many who are really living such utterly frugal lives that they would illicit sympathy from anyone on an average income.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

To illustrate the nonsense that are scholarships Boris Johnson had one at Eton...

 

[metalblue]

There's fuck all wrong with state education. I was state educated and have forged a respectable career for myself, I would say the likelihood of my trajectory being different had I been sent private is slim to non-existent. Likewise, my close friend since childhood (also state educated) is now a cardiologist. No amount of private schooling is going to shape a child if the aptitude and diligence isn't there to begin with.

Most parents choose the private route so they have a trophy child to show off to the Joneses.

Bar the last sentence you’re spot on IMHO

 

[bluenova]

This is why I say let parents pay for it ahead of tax. Make it less beyond the means of most as it would be “costing” you £9k a year not £14k. Same for childcare costs and a lot of people are paying best part of £10k or more a year - at the moment the amount parents can save via salary sacrifice isn’t enough.

So adding another tax cut for people using private schools to the one they already have? Not sure that's going to go down too well :)

It's very, very different to childcare costs, which are not a choice (or the choice is between being able to go to work and not working, rather than giving your child a better education when free options are available).

 

[metalblue]

For most careers it probably doesn't make a huge difference.

For the ones with power; politics, senior lawyers, senior civil servants, journalists - it's "curious" how much of a difference it makes.

There is almost certainly an old boys club out there.

 

[Brewster's millions]

It's one of the least controversial Labour policies around.

It only appears marginally controversial because so many in the media and politics, who are commenting on it, went to, or have kids at private school.

The vast majority of the population have almost no sympathy at all for the families affected.

View attachment 111834

How much sympathy, if any, would you feel towards families who send their children to private schools if they end up paying more because VAT was added to private school fees? | Daily Question

How much sympathy, if any, would you feel towards families who send their children to private schools if they end up paying more because VAT was added to private school fees?

yougov.co.uk

45% have some degree of sympathy, 45% don’t and there’s a relatively small number of don’t knows. So actually very evenly divided.

Interestingly the figures don’t change much across the social classes if you look at the data and there’s absolutely no proof at all behind your assertion as to why it’s proving controversial across the media.

And my main point around student loans, the likely cost of these to the taxpayer and their new treatment within the public finances remains.

 

[Bournemouth Blue]

It will just mean some parents who could afford private education will switch to State education. Whatever people think about the private system, those who can afford it save the State and taxpayers money, so this will put more pressure on the State education system. Same applies to private healthcare and dentistry, I pay full wack for for my dentist as there are no NHS dentists nearby, and if I had an urgent medical issue I would consider going private if I could afford it and the alternative was a long wait and decreasing chance of survival. It is a fact of life, we all pay much higher taxes or accept it

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

It doesn’t make it a luxury good.

That’s not the criterion for a good or service being subject to VAT.

Do you not agree that’s it’s a professional service?

 

[metalblue]

So adding another tax cut for people using private schools to the one they already have? Not sure that's going to go down too well :)

It's very, very different to childcare costs, which are not a choice (or the choice is between being able to go to work and not working, rather than giving your child a better education when free options are available).

That’s a fair distinction

 

[metalblue]

That’s not the criterion for a good or service being subject to VAT.

Do you not agree that’s it’s a professional service?

I wasn’t opining if it should or should not be subject to VAT. I was merely saying it’s not a luxury good.

 

[bluenova]

45% have some degree of sympathy, 45% don’t and there’s a relatively small number of don’t knows. So actually very evenly divided.

Interestingly the figures don’t change much across the social classes if you look at the data and there’s absolutely no proof at all behind your assertion as to why it’s proving controversial across the media.

And my main point around student loans, the likely cost of these to the taxpayer and their new treatment within the public finances remains.

Suggesting that someone saying they've "not much sympathy", is on the positive side is a bizarre take, given the four choice involved.

Also, support by social class jumps from 14 in C2DE to 23 in ABC1, so there is a significant difference.

However, that has no link with the statement I made. People in politics and the media, are MUCH more likely to have been to public school, or have kids at public school, so have a skewed view of the argument. ABC1, which is now more than half the population, is NOT the same as people high up in the media who have personal experience of public school.

 

[meltonblue]

Sam Freedman’s always a good read on this topic.

Why the Daily Mail’s defence of private schools doesn’t add up

Removing charitable status from private schools won’t lose Labour money – or voters.

www.newstatesman.com

This one’s really good but behind a paywall -

The Politics of Envy?

A response to every argument against VAT on private school fees

samf.substack.com

 

[domalino]

Pretty sure I raised my kids myself. Fuck sort of comment is that?

Some people hear private school and immediately think of some 19th century year round boarding school.

 

[domalino]

It will just mean some parents who could afford private education will switch to State education. Whatever people think about the private system, those who can afford it save the State and taxpayers money, so this will put more pressure on the State education system. Same applies to private healthcare and dentistry, I pay full wack for for my dentist as there are no NHS dentists nearby, and if I had an urgent medical issue I would consider going private if I could afford it and the alternative was a long wait and decreasing chance of survival. It is a fact of life, we all pay much higher taxes or accept it

This kind of thinking just creates a 2 tier country though.

Healthcare, dentistry and education are considered basic human rights in this country and fundamental duties of government. If there’s pressure on those systems then it’s the governments job to sort them out, not to take all their kids out, pay for a great service, and let all the plebs rot.



The average cost of private schooling is now £20k a year. The VAT on that would be £4k a year, £2.2Bn to the tax man.

That would pay for 300,000 kids to be state schooled.

So even if a few lower middle class parents pull their kids out of private, the rest will cover any added cost to the state 100x and if ringfenced would reverse the spending cuts the Tories have made to the DoE since coming to power by about 30%.

 

[Brewster's millions]

Suggesting that someone saying they've "not much sympathy", is on the positive side is a bizarre take, given the four choice involved.

Social class support jumps from 14 in C2DE to 23 in ABC1, so there is a significant jump. However, it has no link with the statement I made. People in politics and the media, are MUCH more likely to have been to public school, or have kids at public school, so have a skewed view of the argument. ABC1, which is now more than half the population is NOT the same as people high up in the media who have personal experience of public school.

Quoting opinion polls and then making broad sweeping statements about people in the media - a bit contradictory isn’t it?

On a broader point I would say that a policy proposal doesn’t have to be front and centre of public opinion, or indeed generate any strong reaction from the general public in the first instance, for it to be regarded as controversial.

This particular policy is controversial because it’s unclear whether it will actually prove a net positive for the public finances. Another, related controversial element is that parents who opt for private education are reducing the burden on the state while not receiving any offset in their taxation, but now face additional costs. The arguments for and against on this thread, which in most cases make fair points, also suggest it’s a controversial issue even if it’s not prompting the same sort of debate across the general public.