If VAT is added on Private School Fees, then it will be added onto University fees as well

Charitable status is not a red herring because they also want to remove the business rates exemption which affects charities more widely potentially as well.

The point is that these kind of changes are going to need proper scrutiny not fly by night VAT Notice implementation. If they want to do this in the first budget they better do the work now.

It is not simple in the 16-18 bracket surely? Can private schools then split that age group? Given that is where most are?

Haven’t read the whole thread.

Charitable status is a red herring.

The 20% VAT on private school fees would be implemented by changing the current law on VAT which says education services are exempt from VAT.

They would change it to something like “educational services are exempt from VAT except for educational services provided by Schools”.

They would then need to define what Schools means in a way that doesn’t catch universities, tutors, Saturday schools, maths clubs etc etc. This is tricky but by no means impossible.

I’d hope they’d also try to carve out SEN schools but that will be harder to do.

Essentially, the govt can tax or not tax whatever they want, it’s just about getting the legal wording right and then voting it through.

Floating voter my arse.

This - from a univ lecturer.

The two are not the same. My eldest needed a degree to do his job. He did not need a private school education.

😬

“It’s simply not going to happen, so you’re going to have to live with the terror of VAT on university fees.”

So unis that are private profitable businesses won’t attract a sales tax but private schools that are charities will?

Given that the so-called experts couldn’t agree on the VAT treatment of a Jaffa Cake, forgive me for being sceptical about how straightforward it will be to impose VAT on certain areas of education.

And we also have uni trauma because our places are being sold abroad to the highest bidder, that is a fact, well documented in even the most basic of newspapers.
That does not mean we do not have sympathy for squeezed academics and lost EU funding. It does not mean we disagree that academics should be paid more, for example. Our unis are so important, it is one of the things this country still does well. So it is important to ask what is going to happen to tertiary education going forward when a new Government is adopting a gimmicky moral policy on a part of the Education sector. What next springs to mind?
Education is big business and a huge cost, just like health and questions need to be asked.

They are as hopeless on a few issues

It’s simply not going to happen, so you’re going to have to live with the terror of VAT on university fees.

Why is anyone surprised that there is such low confidence in politicians of whatever ilk? Is it not documented that public confidence is at an all time low? What are Labour going to do about restoring confidence?

Spell out the policies in detail please. We already have Brexit trauma. And Covid PTSD from random rules and policies. Of course we are not going to have blind faith in a moral tax and believe there won’t be unintended consequences. This is an attack on children and the Education sector at large.

Your question is “is it workable to find some form of wording the distinguishes between private schools and universities”? We can all debate what unreasonable means, but again while I don’t have the highest opinion of politicians, this does not strike me as even remotely a challenge in avoiding accidentally implementing a £3bn tax hike.

No

Some of them still think this . Then there was their science and tech spokesman on Times radio yesterday who said that the policy was about making independent schools pay VAT on their purchases like state schools have to. This is rubbish , state schools reclaim their VAT through either a s126 for academies or s 33 for LEA schools . In comparison independent schools pay VAT on their purchases and h fee this policy will now. Enable to reclaim. Incidentally this will benefit the big rich schools who build swimming pools and theatres but not the smaller less rich schools whose main cost is teachers salaries.

another Labour MP yesterday on the radio called the fact that there is no VAT on school fees a tax deductible …, what ? They also keep conflating charitable status and VAT rather than understanding that it’s the nature of the supply not the supplier which determines VAT status , hence the whole Jaffa cake scenario.

I will still vote Labour but Keir really needs to get them some training on the basics . Frankly the media don’t understand it either but sooner or later someone will start grilling them .

The issue is that trust is lost about their capability.
As a lifelong Labour voter I won't be voting Labour. Not just on this issue but it highlights that they are more interested in the populist vote and perpetuating UsVThem than they are about sensible, well thought out policies. It isn't the Labour that I believe in.

Precisely. The current plan is still a policy position. It’s not unreasonable to question whether a policy position is workable, especially when it seems to be one of the only policies as things stand.

I wish I could give them the same credit but the entire ‘We’ll just remove the charitable status of private schools’ climbdown hasn’t filled me with confidence. It’s also not that long ago that politicians were following around a bus emblazoned with slogans about the oodles of money that would be available to spend on the NHS after Brexit.

This is another headline grabbing vote winner, nothing more. There is no policy or precedent behind this and private schools will undoubtedly fight back. They need to have covered all bases and it’s blatantly obvious that as yet that hasn’t been done.

Well yeah, one’s a policy position and the other is a piece of legislation that goes through multiple readings.

I thought that it might be linked to Labours stance on woman’s rights.

Am I right that as a union member, and with your voting history, you would consider yourself left wing? I’m guessing that Labours position on self-Id is therefore much more upsetting to you than if you’d always identified with right wing parties.

The Labour Party (and media) suggested that removing charitable status would lead to VAT being payable. They went on and on about it. That was factually incorrect. It’s not unreasonable to question whether or not the latest plan is also based on inaccuracies, or whether it will lead to consequences they haven’t thought about. Why are people so sure that this latest plan will achieve what they want it to, when the previous plans were proved unworkable? Why are people so sure that it’s different this time; that this plan is bullet proof, when the other two plans were a shambolic mess?

Actually no, you can't answer on behalf of another poster. Precisely because you have a pre-conceived notion that they must be Tory. You realise many Labour voters don't agree with the policy either?