Private Schools being able to hold charitable status

[IdiotCreatures]

I went and looked at a building associated with a local independent school yesterday, as it's always piqued my curiosity.
The school is run by the Woodard Corporation. I looked at their books on company house yesterday.
The amount of money moving through them is ridiculous. If people want to pay for a private education, then surely the institutions should be taxed.
Apart from a small number of scholarships, the average person is not benefiting from these institutions.
In the case of Eton, as pointed out on another thread, these schools are probably leading to damage to society and definitely do not promote the idea of equality.

But some parents wouldn't pay more and take their kids back into the state sector, putting pressure on state schools and increasing the cost to the taxpayer.

Half a million is chicken feed when the cost of education is a whopping 96 BILLION to the UK taxpayer.

There are 20,000 state schools in the UK, so your proposal would give each state school a wonderful £250 per year! What use would that be? It wouldn't cover the cost of every school having one extra pupil moving to it from the private schools.

It'd basically be a massive own goal that would do more harm than good. Half a million sounds a lot, but do the Maths, spread it over the number of schools/pupils and it's basically loose change!

Tax is on "profit" not income, and very little of the £15k would be "profit", so very little tax revenue would be raised. In fact, private schools aren't allowed to make a "profit", they can make a "surplus" but ultimately the surplus has to be spent on charitable activities, i.e. the provision of education, so a surplus in one year will be spent to cover a deficit in another or on capital spending, i.e. building improvements, or invested to gain investment income to spend on their charitable purposes. So, basically, over time, there'd be no "profit" and therefore no tax revenue.

@Badbadbunny I'm suggesting a sales tax on fees not profit.

And I've already said if that was 20% sales tax at the same rate as other services it'd generate £1.5bn a year.

That's nearly 2.5% increase per pupil. I think it's worth it given the poor funding of state schools. Obviously I'd like more to come from other sources.

If you did that, you have to apply to ALL forms of private education, i.e. swimming, dance, music, etc. You can't just charge VAT on a particular provider because you don't like them, it would fail any court challenge. It has to be across ALL providers. Would do more harm than good.

NO charities can make a profit they aim to make a loss eg cancer research make 180 million they'll spend 182 million. Check out charities commission

The number of people who use private tutoring, should they be taxed??

If you did this, an awful lot of private schools would close. For some of you who are ideologically opposed to them anyway, great, but for those who object on financial grounds, this would be a massive own goal. It would not raise revenue but because the schools would close so not generate it and you'd have about 5% more kids in the state sector than you have now with no additional revenue. It just doesn't work as an idea.

@ChiselandBits I do not believe this. I already posted research that the majority of children in private schools are from the top income families. They can afford it and do not need subsidised by the state.

You'd then be surprised to learn how many local councils are paying the bulk of private school fees for SEN pupils

I assume you mean VAT. If a school was registered for VAT it would be able to deduct all its input VAT on its expenses and capital expenditure so your calculations are way out.

@justasking111 No I would not. I have already talked about that. And those would continue.
The only private schools that might be affected are those marginal ones that are not that good and already struggling.

So you're the arbiter of what schools deserve to survive then

I've tried telling them that to no avail sigh

@justasking111 do you have links to that? The number of SEN pupils for whom councils are paying for private provision? I'd love to be surprised with some facts. Genuinely. Because I had no idea this was happening. At DC's comp (tho they left a few years ago) SEN was catered for in-house.

@antelopevalley I work in a small indie school. It is a fantastic place and not in any way failing, but it does have very tight margins, just like most of the others. Most of our parents are not super-wealthy and can afford fees due to 2x professional income, grandparent help or similar. We are not in the south east so housing costs are less which also helps. Your assertion that only "not very good ones" would fail is naive and disingenuous. We also have numerous children with us via LA funding or charitable funding for kids with particular backgrounds who would sink in the state sector - not because those schools are no good or don't care but just scale. This does not have to be an us vs them situation, but decimating the private sector is not the solution to the problems in the state sector.

To be in the top 1% of earners you need to earn up

There's no links as such councils don't advertise because it's very costly. Parents have to fight for years sometimes my friends family fought for three years, got 80% funding in the end.

Google Jack Harley Walsh who's particularly well known because his family fought so hard for so long. I think it was a Berkshire council who eventually paid for his education and boarding fees

…..upwards of £160k before tax. Even high earners have limits. What it will do is stop people going in the first place, make people drop out and go to state secondary or 6th form. It will definitely affect the numbers and close some schools.

We could take the hit of the sales tax or whatever, but I wouldn’t do it out if principle. It’s not just about the money.

@justasking111 not quite what I had in mind as evidence for such a 'you'd be surprised' statement.

I know two families each with six children all in private education one is a solicitor the other in banking security. One uses parent pay which is a loan system I think.

And foreigners will simply stop sending their kids to private schools in the UK once the cost/benefit analysis against foreign options tips too far. That's a net loss of income to the UK economy and will tip some private schools into closure.

The Chinese have been buying up private schools. There's one not far from us. It's a strange place to work some teachers adapted some didn't. The Chinese parents are very keen on a British education leading to university here

"Over the last five years the number of children and young people being educated in specialist schools and colleges have increased by 27 per cent, and now stand at 138,980 pupils."
Not all of these are private schools or colleges. No public information appears to exist for that. It is actively discouraged as the average cost is £40,000 per pupil to a local authority.

Your school is not typical. The stats I posted on the thread show the vast majority of parents sending children to private school are very well-off, although of course it depends what you mean by two professional incomes.
If the parents can not afford what would be a fairly small increase in fees, then yes you would close.

Oh come on! If people abroad stop sending their children to British schools, that will be due to a lack of performance in those schools.