Should Private School fee payers get a tax rebate

[Pamplemousecat]

Just following on from another thread. If a child isn’t in the state system should the parents still have to pay the proportion of tax that is taken for education?

No. Ludicrous idea.

My DC were privately educated (personal choice) but I would never expect a tax rebate as a result of that personal choice. Our taxes contribute to our current and future society. Simple. I am in the highest tax banding but have never once considered it a right to get something back.

Only if people who don’t have kids get a rebate, and people who are fit and healthy, or have private medical cover, so don’t need the NHS as much get a rebate, or smokers get a rebate for dying young so they need less state pension.we all make our choices. Private schools are usually charities, so you’re already benefiting from tax breaks.

So often recently I read threads here and wonder which party is testing out a fucking stupid idea just to see if it will float.

Not just stupid but actually vile. Eg I haven’t visited the doctor for 7 years. Why should I pay for the NHS. I don’t holiday abroad. Why should I pay for consulates in other countries?

I don't think you'd have enough money to educate the state kids if you did that, as the childless would also need to be exempt, logically.

My children are privately educated - and I don’t think we should get a rebate - as others say it is our choice.
However if you take away schools Charitable status, there will be 2 tax consequences - firstly they will be taxed on profits they make - but as they plough all their funds back into reinvestment this would produce nothing. Secondly business rates would be chargeable. Since our school offers about 10% bursaries compared to fee income (as charitable status with a fair few on 100%), logically as a business they should withdraw these and spread thus saving across all full fee payers to reduce this increase so they can carry on affording the fees. Not a pleasant or desirable outcome but if people really want to treat them as businesses one could hardly blame them for behaving as such. I can see no winners with this.

Private schools do act like a business

Many have entrance exams and have low to no tolerance of disruptive

Why to get the best results by getting good results they are more attractive to more potential parents and can gain the best of the pupils that will fit with their ethos oh and this allows them to increase the fees

Look at money going into private schools again Pample many are making vast amounts of money

I don't have children - can I get a tax rebate for not incurring any educational costs? I'll have another one for the money I've saved the NHS by not getting pregnant, and perhaps my employer will give me a bonus too because I haven't cost them any maternity pay. I don't drive, either, so I'll have a refund of whatever portion of my taxes pays for road maintenance, too, please.

... of course you shouldn't, in other words. Taxes don't work on a 'pay as you go' basis. Most people could give examples of taxpayer funded things they've never needed - the admin involved in working out who owed what would cost the taxpayer more than anyone could hope to save.

no to a tax rebate, we all live in a society in which we want all children to be educated. But an equally loud no to paying VAT, school is not and can never be a luxury.

“But an equally loud no to paying VAT, school is not and can never be a luxury.”

But educating the rich is not a charitable enterprise either.

If a government wants to get rid of something because they think it a social evil or undesirable for any reason, there are two ways of getting rid of it. One is to ban it outright, the other is to tax it. Taxing it takes longer to work but that, combined with other methods (e.g. removing charitable status) generally causes it to wither away, and stay away. Political scientists generally believe that taxing it is a more successful way of abolishing it than banning it.

A government might want to create a special, higher, rate of VAT for those things they think are particularly undesirable, in the same way as we have low or zero rates of VAT for some essential items.

Tax is theft, if you don’t use a service you shouldn’t have to pay for it.

The idea is not as ludicrous as it sounds. In France, private schools operate under contract with the state and receive the same pupil funding as state schools. Parents just pay a top-up, which is not very expensive. Is someone going to say that is wrong too?

I think things are often called ludicrous when people just don’t want something to happen. It’s clearly a minority that use private schools so the vast majority of the public would be still paying for their use of a state position. The problem is that most fee payers will be the ones who pay a large percentage of their salary in tax so without those paying for a full state school place it would probably make a difference to the current state system. For those who keep saying “ tax the private schools! Burn them!” What you don’t seem to grasp is that this will have an impact on your child in the state system. It will not be a good scenario. Corbyn proposed to spend the raid on free school dinners. Lovely and very worthy but it won’t help the almighty squash and squeeze, even further lack of resources that will be caused by your kids’ class size shooting up. Also they have tried to do trials on the correlation between school meals and attainment as they have to link it to a concrete statistic. Even labour admit that this trial has not really worked. I’m all for free meals but I’m not sure you can link it to attainment in such a quantitative way.

We educate DS at a provincial private school. Tax rebate would never fly in the current climate - one where the main opposition party is planning to tax private schools out of existence or abolish up front. Whilst I think in some countries a partial tax rebate is given, this idea and discussion is really unhelpful given the threat we face from Labour - therefore I can’t help
thinking the OP may be s troll whic the opposite view themselves!!

@Greatnorthwoods. I'm sorry your education, state or otherwise, wasn't sufficient to help you think things through clearly. Tax is not theft. Tax is conscience and is your, yes even for you, protection.

“Lovely and very worthy but it won’t help the almighty squash and squeeze, even further lack of resources that will be caused by your kids’ class size shooting up.“

I don’t think private schools will ever be abolished. But, out of interest, how many would my child’s class shoot up by if they were?

greatnorthwoods I hope you remember that if you get mugged. Hope you have some cash spare under your mattress to pay the ambulance driver if you have a heart attack and shock horror have to use the NHS or to bung a few quid to the armed forces if there are riots or a bomb attack in your neighbourhood

I mean all these “let’s shut private schools” are all very laudable and that.

How are you going to sort the state system first to ensure it is actually fit for purpose across the board? To ensure people can get info local schools?

OP; “Also I thought only 4% of kids went to private school? So how are you predicting that them not paying tax would cause a crash in the education system.”

So how are YOU predicting a massive overwhelm of the state system if say, 20% of the current 4% in private schools revert to state schools on the introduction of VAT?

Oh, when I come to power, and I abolish private schools, I will also abolish state faiths and selective schools, and admissions will be by a combination of fair banding and lottery.

Thankfully Bertrand that’s not going to happen.

Because on one hand your talking about a reduction in taxable income and on the other you talking about actual physical space being less.

So here's a point my dh made about this.

We privately educate our kids, a friend of his has chosen to state educate kids but spends the equivalent of the school fees on cars.

Both expenditures are from post tax income, but using that money benefits society (because the state doesn't have to pay £3-5k/child to educate our kid) whereas buying a (foreign made) car doesn't.

I think it would be fairer for school fees to be paid from pre tax income for this reason, especially as it would make fees more affordable for more people but it's not going to happen as its not a vote winner (probably the opposite).

I think the system as it is is fine.

I don't believe that any form of education should have vat added and as a pp said bursaries would quickly disappear if they had to pay business rates (as why should they give discounted places away otherwise).

As usual Corbyn's latest stupid ideas would lead to everyone being worse off as there's be a flurry of parents trying to get state school places as they can no longer afford the fees, and they will not be the ones getting the places at the worst schools. So it leaves fewer state school places, and crucially fewer school places in the outstanding schools.

I'd be very interested to know how much of the tax raised from this idea would then have to be spent on extra school places from those who can't afford to go private, I imagine there would not be much left over and may even cost the state.

Really no one should want this.

Got my vote @BertrandRussell.

“Thankfully Bertrand that’s not going to happen.”

Sadly true. But i’m still interested in how many my child’s class size would shoot up by if private schools were abolished.