To ask if anyone is clued up on the challenge this week to VAT on school fees?

Will no one think of the lawyers ?

The ‘legal challenge’, as far as this a non-privately educated thicko understands it, is hilarious…

A Christian independent school thinks its closure would prove ‘discriminatory’. Despite the fact that there is a vast choice of Christian state schools available all over the nation.

Oh the horror of those poor Christian kids, having to mix with state school riff raff.

WWJD?

Charitable status should have been the first thing to go- and if the Tories had actually dealt with that then perhaps VAT wouldn’t be happening at all, but the gall of these businesses claiming to be ‘charities’ in any way has pissed off a lot of people.
Couple that with 14 years of privately educated knobs running state edu action into the ground = not many people feeling much sympathy for the ‘plight’ of the privileged being taxed

https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/support-for-children-and-young-people-with-special-educational-needs/

The Labour Party have basically been told that the SEND system is inadequate and their solution is to push even more SEND kids into an inadequate system and surely the claimant in the legal challenge can rely on this report as adequate evidence of the SEND system being in crisis? So exactly how are the Labour Party going to be able to defend their tax on kids with SEND? They cannot, they have ZERO evidence. They are simply using VAT as it is the only tax they could come up with and they cannot exempt kids with SEND full stop because VAT is not a tax on the end user. So there tax is going to fail, in my opinion. It is not a tax, it is a sham.

Fair enough, bad example in that case. I was going to go with knife crime as an example but thought Drs might be a less insulting illustration.

Personally I was hoping that the legal challenge would not just comment on VAT on private school fees for SEND kids but would go much further and name and shame the inadequate postcode lottery SEND system and force Central Government to start funding all SEND kids promptly and properly. And force them to come up with a workable plan and also stop denying the mental health crisis post Covid amongst kids and teens that they are just hoping to gloss over and not actually fund properly.
So here is to hoping the case will have far more implications than just VAT on private school fees and the numpties in charge will be forced to start funding state schools properly - which basically means actually dealing with vulnerable SEND kids primarily.

Medic family here. Medicine is a very bad example to cite. The cost of a 5 year minimum Medicine degree makes Medicine prohibitive to many DC who do not have well-off parents behind them. Also, Medicine is notoriously competitive and historically DC of doctors were in a much more favourable position as medical work shadowing/experience was very relevant to the selection process and it was easy to secure if mummy or daddy were a consultant. Thankfully, at least that part has changed and applicants do not need medical work experience to reflect upon in their interview. Indeed, today only 28% of today's med students are from private schools, which, considering 20% of DC are in private 6th forms, the stats are not far out of kilter, particularly considering the privately/grammar school educated DC have the advantage of treading a well trodden path into Medicine rather than in many cases being trailblazers.

Moreover, if the Supreme Court thinks it is in breach of the Human Rights Act how can HMRC actually force private schools to register and account for VAT? Prisoners not getting a vote has no financial implications. How can HMRC enforce a law which breaches the HR Act? They have to abide as a public institution, the private schools should simply refuse to pay it over it that happens?

If the Government cannot prove this “tax” will make money there is simply no proportionality. Which means it is no longer a real tax and is a deterrent. And as it discriminates against children with SEND and they have failed to carry out an impact assessment for those kids and to prove it is a revenue generating tax, I cannot see this getting through the courts.

@Moonshiners
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with charitable status. The VAT position is an entirely separate issue. Only around half of private schools have charitable status anyway. The misunderstandings surrounding this issue and the nonsense being peddled is astounding.

The IFS include people being forced into the state sector and spending the money they save on their children’s education
on other vatable items in their calculations. That’s the logic; the children move schools, the state takes on the the £7620 education per child and the lucky parents buy a new car at a net loss to the state.

legally challenge

The thing about governments - which is a bit unfair - is they can always change laws that are successfully challenged. Just ask anyone who received compensation for the unlawful Workfare scheme.

Bright parents who value education generally have bright kids, 60% of Drs from 7% of the population. Below average intelligence parents who think taxing education is a good idea generally have below average intelligence children, 40% drs from 93% population. It’s just a fact.

You mean a crowd funded legal challenge? The VAT policy has never been about being fairer to society and if you believe that then you are incredibly naive.
Anyway they have now exempted military families so with: state boarding, military, some SEN + state boarding then that's over one fifth of the Indy school population. Plus on track for 90,000 leaving/not starting indy schools. This policy will now likely raise £0 net.
But it was always about punishing indy parents, rather than improving state.

I am talking about using wealth, contacts etc to legally challenge a tax change designed to be fairer to society as a whole rather than the use of private schools generally.

It’s 10% pay 60% of income tax.

1% of the population own 60% of the land.

‘Don’t forget that 49% of the population is below average intelligence and ( being brutally honest) its the exclusion of the children of these people that makes PS so successful’

Fuck me. Eugenics now? What a delightful lot private parents are.
Only people with limited intelligence would honestly believe that private school children are somehow superior to the rest of the population.

Of course you missed out the ‘that other people pay’ bit from that post.

I’ve noticed those who are net takers are always whinging that net contributors should contribute more. Do you think that attitude dictates lack of success in life or that the attitude comes as a result of lack of success? I’m my opinion, it’s the former.

It’s 10% pay 60% of income tax. You can tell very easily those who only take and don’t contribute with no shame, very easily. Don’t forget that 49% of the population is below average intelligence and ( being brutally honest) its the exclusion of the children of these people that makes PS so successful. It’s not academic resources, it’s not the teachers, it’s not connections, it’s not the school trips…it’s the parents!!. It could be a prefab in an industrial estate in Doncaster compared to a stately home in Kensington, but if 5% of the parents in Kensington don’t have the intelligence or motivation to raise their children properly then Doncaster kids will have better life outcomes.

Of course you're righti just @Lookslikemeemaw but it's also a fact that outside of the few Eton type schools you have hundreds of small, not necessarily very spruce day schools that are within reach of fairly ordinary MC professionals and they use them instead of fighting for an EHCP or entering the scrum of the catchment area game or because their earnings wouldn't allow a mortgage in a decent catchment but they can choose to spend on fees to achieve a suitable school environment. Do I want to be in debt? No. Would I love my kids to have coped at our local state school? Yes. But they didn't. I earn less than 45k. That's decent but not "monied'. I just wish people would accept and acknowledge that actually a fair proportion of private parents are "ordinary working people". You don't have to be on nmw or a zero hours contract to be a hard working ordinary person.

it’s a fact that the majority of children in private schooL come from the top earning/ monied families. How ‘well off’ people feel they are is a very subjective thing…

Don't dwell on them. It's just not worth it.

Not at all directed at you. Just a general observation. However, my comment about our local prep being full of Range Rovers and Teslas was not a lazy assumption. It's just fact, I know because I had DC there and I was driving one, albeit mine was usually covered in mud. There are also lazy assumptions about people with DC in grammars or very good state schools having bought expensive houses and paying through the nose for tutoring. That may be true for some but not for all. We didn't tutor and DC got into supposedly super competitive grammars. They are all just platitudes and there is a danger of over simplification from both sides when life tends to be more complex than that for most.

If the comments about cars are aimed at me, I only mentioned it as a reply to those who were making the usual lazy assumptions about those who use private schools. I'm not virtue signalling in any way...just trying to dispel the myth that all private school users are hugely wealthy and are just "whinging" rather than being genuinely massively concerned about how to keep my kids in their current setting, which actually does cater to their needs.

Oookaaaay then well obviously you know best however I could show you 100s of comments that would contradict you.