Labour, private schools VAT and universities

[BloodyHellKen]

Following on from the thread about Labour, private schools and VAT please could someone explain to me why we shouldn't be concerned that a Labour govt wouldn't remove tax exemption from universities also as they are also VAT exempt in the same way private schools are.

I'm not personally worried about VAT being added onto private school fees and I recognise arguments for and against but the possibility of VAT being added onto a university education does really concern me.

Anyone?

Not necessarily. Most of the private school parents where I am are 25-35 and work for the NHS (doctors, dentists, nurses) because private schools often include free wrap around care & it’s much cheaper and easier to lump it all together because childcare between 3-8 is not only impossible to find it’s also almost as expensive as school fees in some areas.

The doctors, dentists, nurses must have had their children in their early or mid 20s whilst still studying for their qualifications? If their children are now of school age and the parents are now 25-35?
That’s surprising such a high number of professionals are having children so young. Given that the average age of first time parents is around 29/30. And the children you refer to at school be at least 5? Unless some had their children at age 20 and are now 25?
Private school fees rise significantly at secondary level too becoming more and more unaffordable? The early years private school fees can often be comparable to nursery fees, but not so much as the child progress through?

I am not making stuff up. I am sure you have commented that in the UK we have a have a communist healthcare system. That must be very much at odds with your capitalist principles so have you opted out of that state provision too?

No-one is pretending state schools are free. It is patronising to think that people don't know that school buildings and services cost money and that teachers, support and office staff need to be paid. Everyone also knows they are funded by taxes and free at the point of access so please stop playing with words and repeating slogans. We are not stupid.

An accessible education, irrespective of financial circumstances of parents, is is a child's basic right. State education is a necessary social provision to ensure fair access to all. Private education is a choice people make to opt out of the mainstream system, to which 94% of children subscribe. If parents choose not to take up the offered provision, that is their choice it seems odd to expect tax breaks for that. People pay taxes for a range of services and benefits that they don't use. I don't take up prison places so I am saving the taxpayer £££ in that respect but I don't expect to get a tax break for being law abiding. Should childless couples pay lower taxes because they are not using state schools? Should someone with four children in state school be taxed more because they are taking more school places? Of course not but if you apply your logic, you could almost justify it.

Perhaps you're right and people understand state school isn't free. In that case why do the same people deny that independent schools save the taxpayer £££ 3x more than the value of the tax exemption; and why do you say independent schools have tax breaks (which they don't) and subsidies (without ever mentioning the 100% subsidy of state schools)?

I'm not asking for a tax break. There isn't a tax break. I could be asking for an actual tax break or subsidy, as many countries globally do have, but I'm not.

We have healthcare that's "free", allocated by bureaucratic rationing, and ideologically opposed to charging anyone. There's a name for that economic system, whether you like it or not, and that doesn't mean I have a problem with paying for public healthcare by taxation, as happens in (checks notes) virtually every developed country without a communist healthcare system.

I don't agree education is a right - and if you're going to talk like that, please don't complain that I use slogans. I agree that we should provide it because of the social benefit. That's why (to pick up your rant) we all pay for prisons, childless people pay for education, and larger families get a school place per child no questions asked. And to be crystal clear, I have no "issue" with any of those things either.

The crux of this is that you think education is not a right and I fundamentally do. The rest of your arguments are inherently flawed to me as they rest on this fundamental belief that I do not share. I cannot be bothered to address all your points and I have a real-life job to do (you know to pay taxes and all that). Your petty jibes (to pick up your rant) (checks notes)are quite pathetic and keyboard warrior-ish.

I think the long and short of it is that you have chosen to opt out of state education because for whatever reason the state provision is not good enough for your children. This means you pay for that service (with VAT if it is applied). You are neither Chancellor/PM (nor those in waiting) nor a senior government advisor so the only choice you have is to accept them or renounce the private sector or even communist UK if it is too much for your sensitivities.

Don't worry, there won't be any unis when your DCs are old enough to go because unless Labour increase overseas student visas again, there will be no money to run them.

You believe education is a right. I believe we educate children at taxpayers' expense for other, good reasons which it's not clear you understand. You've repeatedly accused me of not supporting taxpayer-funded education and healthcare ...and you're wrong. And you accuse me of "petty jibes".

I support both by paying taxes (like you); I support both in principle (like you, but for different reasons); and I particularly support both by using neither (unlike you).

TL:DR fact is, there is no tax break on independent education, state schools aren't free, independent schools are a social benefit and save the taxpayer £££. That's the economics.

‘independent schools are a social benefit and save the taxpayer £££. ‘

thats an incredibly narrow, subjective view … there are plenty who would argue that private schools are a blight and should be done away with altogether.

So you are saying that private schools don't save the taxpayer money?
Each of the 500,000 DC in private schools saves the state 8K each per year. Cumulatively they save the state 4 billion per year.

It's objectively true. It's what's taught to A-level economics. And it's what every other country in the world recognises through their tax system, in many cases more generously than the UK.

To say otherwise isn't an argument, simply an incorrect assertion. If independent schools didn't exist, taxpayers would need an extra £4-8bn to pay for more state education, depending whether it became necessary to buy new land and buildings. You can't get more objective than that.

Externalities - Definition - Economics Help

• "A private school provides an external benefit because the workforce will be more educated in the future and it saves the cost of government education in a publically-funded school."

I believe in the right of any child to a decent, free at point of access, education. You believe in what's most financially efficient for society on the whole. Big difference in principles. I understand perfectly what you are trying to say. I just vehemently don't agree with you. It's allowed.

You subscribe to a two-tier system because although you "support" public healthcare and state schools, they are clearly not good enough for you so you choose to pay. Your call but don't complain about the cost of making those choices.

I find it very hard to believe that you have never used the NHS. Never A&E with small children? Did Mrs Chips give birth at the Portland or similar? What about child vaccinations? All done privately, really?

You view everything through an 'economics' prism. Being part of a fair society has extra layers which seem to escape you entirely.

You and I both support taxpayer-funded education. You've accused me repeatedly of not doing so, when I support it more strongly than you, by paying for it and not using it. The fact that I support it for economic reasons (which you seem to object to?) while you support it because you assert "rights" doesn't make you better or kinder.

Since I give state education more economic support than you (assuming we earn about the same and pay the same taxes) it's laughable for you to keep saying I don't support it enough.

I don't complain about the cost of my choices. I complain about talk of "tax breaks" and "subsidies" that is plain wrong, and the proposal to be the only country in the world to tax education, and your refusal to recognise the facts. And the facts are economic.

Funnily enough, we debate an economic measure (taxation) using an economic prism. All else is noise.

You seem to ignore that your "support" of state education is mandatory and purely due to your decision to opt out because it was not good enough for your own DC. I strongly suspect that this "support" is not based on altruistic benevolence. You say I don't "support" it because my DC went to state school and took up places. I actually invested my DC's futures into it whilst you did not.

I suspect that you are so "supportive" of the state education sector that if there were a voucher system where you could switch £8,000 per child per annum to offset private education costs, you would jump at it.

I suspect you do use the NHS despite claiming the contrary given that you haven't answered my questions.

You don't yet know the details of VAT on school fees - no-one does so you can't quantify it accurately. It is all conjecture at this stage and if you are citing work of the ASI, then I would hazard that conjecture is severely skewed.

General Election announced … here we go folks!!

Yep
Our school has just sent out an email to say that all bursaries for new applicants will stop and they will only honour existing ones from Sept 2024 onwards.
30% of kids at DDs school are on bursaries. So those types of kids will now be excluded.

And your school has ‘charity’ status or not?

This is from the Torygraph - lover of all things private and ‘striving’ parents…

’Private schools have been accused of “virtue signalling” over bursaries as a new analysis has found that the majority go to middle class families.
Bursaries do “remarkably little" to make fee-paying institutions more socially inclusive, according to a report presented to the British Sociological Association (BSA).
It suggests that private schools are building luxury facilities in an "educational arms race" while providing fee assistance to only minimal numbers of students from low income households. ‘

Low income kids aren’t going to miss out, because they are getting the money in the first place. I have been in 100s of private schools and the one thing they have in common? Stuffed to the gills with children from well off parents or grandparents.

Aren’t getting the money… it’s no surprise to anyone that private businesses are circling the wagons. They money to make, customers to flight to keep…

Lots of private schools don’t have charitable status, around 50%

This is from the Guardian
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/20/vat-private-schools-labour-low-income-kids-tax-bursaries

Quite commonplace in Indian / Pakistani areas

Schools that are charities can set their own public benefit and objectives criteria. It just has to be ‘more than tokenistic’.

I did actually use the ISC map tool to look at schools in various areas in outwith London. For prep and secondary the day school fees were still generally coming out at around £5.5 - £6k per term, and day fees at boarding schools were generally £7k +. I’m sure there are cheaper schools, but I found very few, and they tended to be nursery / pre-prep.

It's not relevant that your and my motivarions are different. I never said I was altruistic, I am happy that my self-interest is consistent with doing more for others, in contrast to yours.

you used taxpayer funded school while I just pay for others to use it....gives me more moral high ground than you. I have done more for other people's education than you, whether you like it or not.

Yes, I would love vouchers, like many other countries in the world have. I would love many more people to have more choices, because that's what vouchers would deliver. Vouchers would be a good direction, being the opposite of taxing education.

Have you read the ASI paper? Do you know what it forecasts, and why?

I find it amusing that you are accusing me of self-interest because I had the audacity to send my DC to a state school in an area I had lived in for years before they were born. It must be even more outrageous that they all got to Oxbridge without having a penny spent on their education (at the point of access).

Still silent on opting out of the NHS, I note. Surely you of all posters wouldn't exaggerate just to make a point.

Now haven't you got a general election to get all excited about?

[Disclaimer: It's a done deal]