To be annoyed that private schools have charity funding.

[Olympiathequeen]

They are not charities, they are businesses.

They do little or nothing for the local community.

They benefit by about £750 mil. They part fund bursaries for around half that amount.

Leaving them with a tidy little £300+ million profit at the expense of the taxpayers.

That money is desperately needed for public schools.

WTAF is the government doing?

Employ not Emily

Some private schools do give back to the community. For example two very selective private schools near me help out the local special schools.

I am not sure that private schools should be expected to entirely open up their facilties for mainstream state schools where the parents are financially similar to the private school parents. Children with severe intellectual disablities will never attend a top private school however rich the parents are. The private school children have gained excellent work experience and the special school children have benefitted from access to superior facilities. It's been a win-win.

I think that there are affordable ways that a private school give back to the community. For example GCSE music is not available at many state schools. If a school ran an after school GCSE music or a Latin class then it would cost less than providing a load of bursaries. Maybe some of the private school children could come along to the class as well if they can't fit music into their timetable.

Independent schools don't receive taxpayer money

The VAT break isn't actual money spent by the government on the schools. It's a calculation of the potential amount that they might have paid on goods etc.

A bit like the value of the tax-free personal allowance, or the value of tax-free ISA interest - you could say how much revenue the government is potentially losing from those exemptions. But that's not the same as saying that the beneficiaries are being government funded

Well that makes all the difference then doesn't it

So if they don't benefit from their charity status they're happy to give it up then?

Well that's like saying I don't want my money to fund other people's benefits isn't it?

No. It's like saying I don't want my taxes to find someone else'a holidays....

I don't understand how anyone is paying for other people's children to go to private schools. The parents pay the fees. If the charitable status is removed, the schools pay more tax, the fees go up. The parents continue to pay or move to state schools, which costs the taxpayer. How is anyone else involved? Ok a bit more tax in the pot, a small amount might find its way into state education funding, but largely offset by the extra kids coming into the state system surely.

Unlike every tax payer who directly contributes to the benefits system, whether they use it or not.

OP do you know every private school and what they are doing?

Parents of children that go to private school are taxpayers so are paying towards state school regardless of any benefit from charitable status. So they are paying twice. Probably much more than the £200 per term that charitable status affords their child. Even if charitable status could be/is removed there is absolutely no guarantee that any additional money would be made available for schools. So yes let's remove charitable status, possibly forcing schools to close, let the state educate those private school pupils at a greater cost to the taxpayer than charitable status and watch as even more teachers/resources are cut. Win win all round.

I don't see why I should pay for their choice. I want my taxes to pay for my children's education.

You aren't paying for their choice.
The parent's taxes pay for your child's education. As to the taxes of many childless people.

£350 million is not a drop in the ocean. It would help fund state schools if the government did the decent thing

Parents would have to pay more for their choice.

If taxes are not collected because of charity status then that's money for better causes, not scotch mist.

State education is available to private school parents. They choose not to use it The reverse does not apply.

Most parents wouldn't pay more, they would be back in the state system, taking education funding away from your children.

I think the insistence that the same number of people will continue to privately educate irrespective of cost is naive.

If the fees go up by 20% by losing the vat status then I think a lot of the smaller private schools.will.close.as.it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back for many parents.

So you'll potentially have 100,000's of children needing to be educated by the state with no.extra tax money (other than the 20% on the fees)to pay for it, so less £ to spend per child in the state system.

totally, out of the 625000, it must be only a small percentage who are iindependently wealthy landowning aristocrats who would send their sons to Eton no matter what, some investment banker/hedge fund types of course but the majority of seriously weather kids are foreigners from what I can see (Russian, Chinese).

Most are from professional working families where both parents work (and pay tax) and whose budgets are not elastic and are already at the limit. Recession and redundancy has had a noticable effect on private schools applications round here. Lots of smaller/crapper ones have closed in the last few years near us.

Where I live there a fewer children being educated privately, at the same time as increasing numbers of students. This is costing the taxpayer more. I'd rather not do something that increases that.

Total education budget £85bn, pupils in England 9.5mm, lets round it up to 10mm to account for Scotland and Wales. £35 per child, what do you want to spend your £35 on?? - it is a drop in the ocean. To be honest you would be better arguing about why some pupils in state get funding at >6k per annum and poorer areas at just over 4k per annum. I'd be more worried about my child missing out on £2k than missing out on £35.

Is there background to your aibu? Have you had a bad experience? You seem really angry.

We've established that the difference in charity funding (your main aibu) is different to charity status.

You know this will also include schools which cater exclusively for children with special needs? Our local, private, SEN school already have to open their hydrotherapy pool to the community for sessions. Or is that ok? You don't mind those?

dont universities have charitable status as well? So everyone's kid's university fees would go up by 20% as well if so?

It seems to me to be entirely unreasonable that institutions only acessible to the better off in society should have charitable status.Why should the OP have had to have a "bad experience" to find this grossly unfair?

I don't think they are only for the better off.

For some people with children with SEN its their only choice and serious fundraising by the community and other organisations is the only way to make it happen.

Its not all rich children at private school!

I asked if the OP had a bad experience as its a random thing to be so angry (and wrong) about.

Saying they do little or nothing for the local community, not in any of he cases I know about.

Where I live they are more accessible than the local state schools where you can't get a place unless you pay for a house I couldn't afford in the one or two very select streets near the school. Or lie and fiddle the system like many do.

I think as a moral position it's fair enough, you can't really argue with it. But as a way of ensuring that the OPs children in state school receive more funding, which is what the OPs major concern seemed to be, the figures don't really stack up.

"You know this will also include schools which cater exclusively for children with special needs? Our local, private, SEN school already have to open their hydrotherapy pool to the community for sessions. Or is that ok? You don't mind those?"

I expect that the school you are referring to is entirely financed by children who have the new equivalent of statements. Hardly any parents can afford a private Sen school. I can see sense in the hydrotherapy pool being open to local disabled children who are in mainstream schools.

Private schools have the option of becoming free schools if they want to get rid of charitable status without closing,