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?

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

Fuck off, does it! That’s the problem. It’s absolutely ‘tokenistic‘.

You can ask your school
Why they fought to keep charity that rather than a VAT free status - as many did. Bit of a Sophie’s choice for private schools …
the answer isn’t course - one route would have cost the school more money, the other - VAT- can be fobbed off into parents, or used to mask the increases they already had planned.

If you look back through my posts, you won't find anything but good wishes for people wanting good education for their children. I'm not outraged your kids went to Oxbridge, I'm delighted. And since you didn't earn school fees you probably didn't have financial stress, or maybe you have money to spare?

And you obviously got a decent state education for them paid for by others like me.

Can I guess they didn't go to a poor school? Grammar, was it? Or nice leafy catchment area?

I'm not outraged by anything other than the ridiculous idea you are more of a community pillar than people paying twice or three times over for your kids' education. I'm the one calling for more people to have a good education, you're the one calling for it to be more exclusive.

I have no intention of answering your contrived questions. You'll be asking how much my London house is worth next! I've seen how you ask others specific questions and then twist them to use as ammunition. It really is not a good look, believe me, and I have no intention whatsoever of playing ball.

One point worth making though, I got more than a decent state education for my DC, they got a truly excellent education full stop. Two have now been awarded exhibitions for their subjects at Uni so their excellent teachers must have been doing something very right.

But hey, back to you, still waiting to hear a definitive answer on whether you have really opted out of the NHS or not. I guess we'll never know (but we can draw our own conclusions).

Yes you were OK because you lived in the catchment of a good school. Out of London the picture gets increasingly worse. Nice that you can live in your privileged London bubble and sneer at the rest of us whose only choice of school was one with poor outcomes, poor aspirations and a reputation for bullying.

There is a reason that both of my teacher friends + my next door neighbour who is HoD at an 'outstanding' state school have chosen private for their DC.

Yes, your children received a good education at others' expense, good for them. Mine are getting a good education at my expense while I pay for state school I don't use, and I'm doing more for others than you did.

Independent schools are brilliant for the public finances. Harming them won't help anyone.

Also the tax payer isn't paying for DDs education whereas we all paid for the education for your DC

For State Schools to improve all parents need to care about education and become more engaged, because the wealthy kids who leave private school will still do better at State than poorer ones.

Except that currently the tax payer IS paying for your DDs education because you don't pay the tax owed on the fees.

Tax isn't owed because education has never been taxed, in fact it was illegal prior to Brexit. Private schools save tax payers money. So no, the tax payer is not paying for my daughter's education.
However if we pull her out then the state will be paying 100% for her education.

And I'll most likely be paying taxes paying for your DD's university loans which may or may not be paid back. So swings and roundabouts really.

Except you won't be because she has an inheritance to pay for Uni. So her education will have cost the tax payer nothing from 11-21. We/family will have footed the whole cost for these years.
So she will have saved the state thousands.
If she goes state from 2025 she will cost the state 40K plus Uni.

Well that puts you in an even more privileged position and also begs the question, why not stop complaining and just use some of the uni fund for the 20% top up on school fees?

Because the inheritance is in a trust fund until she is 18 so no-one can touch it.
Yeah I'm really lucky that my mum died and was able to leave that for DD. I would rather have her still living and zero money! What a crass thing to say.

So DD should be punished because we ourselves have had a good education (NOT privately educated) which enabled us to get decent jobs, sound financial planning + cheap mortgage which all have enabled us to save and send her to private school?

It isn't enough that we are taking the burden of paying for her education off the state? We still have to be punished because we dare to have aspirations for our daughter?

Child 1. Attends state school at a cost of £8,000 to the taxpayer. Parents pay no tax on that benefit. Net cost to taxpayer is £8,000.

Child 2. Attends private school, 100% funded by parents. Taxpayer funds £0. It’s costing the taxpayer nothing. Net benefit to taxpayer is £8,000.

Arguing that the taxpayer is paying for private education is the same as arguing that the taxpayer is funding your loaf of bread as you pay no tax on it.

Don't be ridiculous - we were purely talking finances and you who brought up an inheritance amount. I am sorry your mum died of course but the bitterness and resentment in your posts make it very difficult to reason.

The reply was in response to your suggestion that you, as a taxpayer, would be funding her children’s university education, which is incorrect.

That's a very good analogy - they are funding it, relative to other things I buy.
Of course, we think that bread, children's clothes, books, and tampons are necessities of life so we do ask the taxpayer to take a hit on those.

I brought up inheritance because you said you would be funding my daughter's uni fees. Which is incorrect. You then tell me I'm doubly privileged and to stop complaining.

The taxpayer isn’t “taking a hit”. They’re just not imposing a tax penalty on those things.

Factually your family is financially privileged relative to most people. Most people in the country can't even think about paying school fees and most DC are in a lot of debt from University and that's assuming that they can go, as this relies on their parents being in a position to make up the funding shortfall and many are not. Okay you have an issue with not wanting to pay VAT on school fees and that's all fine. But can you not at least see that there are many people who are in a much worse financial situation and that their sympathy for a cause like this is likely to be minimal. It's not that they hate rich people, are envious... blah blah blah. It's simply that they have bigger things to worry about. [Disclaimer: I am not describing myself]

Personally, I will reserve judgement on my views on this as yet hypothetical policy until the full details and final projections are released. We don't even know if this policy will ever see the light of day at this stage.

It is a reasonable assumption to make if you are saying that you don't think you will be able to find the much lower amount of money required for VAT on school fees. However, I stand corrected.

Oh dear, this is the latest slogan you are all jumping on. You have no idea how much tax I contribute in absolute terms and that has quite a significant bearing on how much I personally contribute to the overall public fund. This is conveniently ignored (or possibly not understood). I continue to pay a lot of tax with all DC now in tertiary education whilst you are talking about giving up work and moving yours to a state school. So this would mean that you are making no tax contribution yourself but your DD will also take up a state place. It's a complex picture and you seem not to understand it.

Let's leave out pity and also less attractive emotions of anger and envy.

Let's just do the economics. Independent schools save the taxpayer ££££. @ForlornLindtBear I agree we don't know your personal situation and lifetime tax contributions but that isn't the point. The point is peer comparisons. An imaginary version of you that paid for education would have done even more for the state than "actual you". An imaginary version of me that took up state school places would do less.

Also "imaginary you" ( I assume you took up a pretty good state school place) would have freed up that good school for somebody with less money or, if you prefer, "less fortunate".

"Imaginary me" would have sent my extremely bright 12yo to the one grammar school in the county. Now she is double disadvantaged, if we can't afford the education tax, because we passed up the place that I'm pretty sure she would have got.

Again, you received education paid-for by others/taxpayers. Good for you and best wishes to your kids. Don't imagine for a minute that you've done the country a service compared to independent school families.

I understand it very well thanks. We are net contributors presently with our DD at private school, if she leaves I would then be a net taker.