Vat on Independent school fees?

As predicted - does anyone not think that there should be a tax for those paying for independent schools and reducing the burden on the state?
 
I suppose the argument against charging VAT is that less state provision is required saving government expenditure, and the people paying for private schools are also paying for state education through their taxes thereby subsidising people who use the state sector.
 
I wonder if VAT would balance out the additional cost of state provision for those whose parents could no longer afford private school fees. Not everyone who sends their kids to private schools are loaded. Some make huge sacrifices and this could make the difference for them. Could end up being a false economy.
 
I think they should do it. The places that educated my kids paid VAT all the way through and they both graduated with a first so the aspiration parents and students crap is just that - crap. If you look at the type of people it produces its some of the worst - Johnson a Reet-Smug for example - it only serves to feed ego's and maintain the class system. It sets up the continuation of the old boys network for parents who are really just buying privilege. Finally if some of those kids go to state schools some influential parents would start demanding investmentment and improvement in them.
 
I actually would do it slightly differently to VAT, I think all fee-paying schools should include a levy - all of which is allocated to equivalent state primary and secondary education. The more expensive your school, the higher your levy. Something like an average 20% levy would add an extra 3-4% to the core state schooling budget.

The arguments about reducing the tax burden by sending kids to independent schools doesn’t wash with me for the same reasons as similar arguments about private health insurance. We should be encouraging as many people into state schools as possible so we don’t have a two-tiered education system which breeds vast inequality. It’s too easy for people of power and influence to not have to use public schooling and the NHS and so therefore not care whether these services are actually of sufficient quality.

If wealthy people start using more public services, watch them suddenly care for the quality of public services.

Don’t get me wrong, private options should be available, but you shouldn’t be rewarded for trying to extract yourself from social society. The state education system is the mechanism that has allowed people to build wealth in the first place, without it we’d still be in the Victorian era. Where would all the workers come from for their businesses?
 
Not only should we make these benefits-spongers pay their fair share of VAT on the school fees, but we actually should increase VAT on school fees to 100%, and make it law that any private schools should reimburse the state sector for the cost of training all their teachers and support staff.
If a private school employs a teacher who has come from, or even just been trained in, the state sector they must pay the local authority involved the entire cost of said training, and also pay back every penny the teacher they so want to employ earned whilst working there. And if that means paying back 20 years salary (adjusted for inflation too of course) to recruit an experienced teacher, so be it. Payment upfront and immediate upon offering a position thank you very much.
As a hard working, fighting age, tax payer I’m heartily sick of seeing my hard earned taxes being frittered away on scroungers who cannot survive a day without suckling on the teat of the state.
I’d do similar for private hospitals as well for the same reasons.

And if cancelling Netflix and drinking fewer lattes doesn’t cover the increased fees (which it surely would do as the daily mail have been telling us that it is the solution to all life’s financial challenges for years), then all that would happen is these spongers would simply have to have their kids educated in the state sector and you can be damned sure that if a sudden influx of a few thousand vociferous, and entitled, parents had to actually use the schools they so bitterly and regularly complain about, these schools would magically be funded a lot more appropriately.

These people who love state subsidies when it is they who benefit from them, to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds per year, for years on end, but complain noisily about giving pensioners and those in lower paid jobs a few pence extra per week to keep the lights on, need a very rude awakening.
And I pray that they soon receive one.
 
SkyBlueFlux said:
I actually would do it slightly differently to VAT, I think all fee-paying schools should include a levy - all of which is allocated to equivalent state primary and secondary education. The more expensive your school, the higher your levy. Something like an average 20% levy would add an extra 3-4% to the core state schooling budget.

The arguments about reducing the tax burden by sending kids to independent schools doesn’t wash with me for the same reasons as similar arguments about private health insurance. We should be encouraging as many people into state schools as possible so we don’t have a two-tiered education system which breeds vast inequality. It’s too easy for people of power and influence to not have to use public schooling and the NHS and so therefore not care whether these services are actually of sufficient quality.

If wealthy people start using more public services, watch them suddenly care for the quality of public services.

Don’t get me wrong, private options should be available, but you shouldn’t be rewarded for trying to extract yourself from social society. The state education system is the mechanism that has allowed people to build wealth in the first place, without it we’d still be in the Victorian era. Where would all the workers come from for their businesses?
Click to expand...
In an ideal world you’re absolutely right but if you have a shit state school in a particular area, some parents are going to stretch themselves to send their kids to a private school. The correct answer is to fund the state sector properly to improve quality so the demand for private education goes down but that takes time and doesn’t help an individual who needs to make a decision now.
 
Worsleyweb said:
As predicted - does anyone not think that there should be a tax for those paying for independent schools and reducing the burden on the state?
Click to expand...

but the numbers at state schools are declining. People sending their kid to a fee paying school could always send their kids to the local state school and contribute the fee they would pay ( not incl VAT ) to the state school to help their kids school improve its performance

schoolsweek.co.uk

Pupil number forecast revised up, but decline still expected

Higher-than-expected primary pupil numbers in this year's school census may be the reason, says DfE
schoolsweek.co.uk schoolsweek.co.uk
 
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