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.

Education is a charitable aim, so they are allowed to apply for charitable status for any activity that is charitable. They may have other activities that are not charitable, and they will pay relevant taxes on those activities - just as many mainstream charities have trading arms that are separate, and do not attract tax relief but actually pay taxes. They can on claim tax relief on expenditure that is solely applied to providing education. If they are “making money” for other purposes then tax relief doesn’t apply. Whilst parents may not pay for state schools, many state schools have charitable status of some sort for fundraising activities, and the same rules apply to them.

Most of them are not run as for profit though

Plus all the other points already raised

Yabu

Many parents, ourselves included, make a lot of sacrifices for our children's education. Our fees are rising 8% next year due to the energy increases. This has tipped some parents into not being able to afford it. So no, an extra £40 a week is probably not doable!

Private schools that are run as profit making businesses are taxed

Private schools that are non-profit making (most, afaik) are charitable and thus not taxed.

Some schools have separate non charitable activities, and these are taxed appropriately.

If you looked at what scholarships they offer only then you haven't a true picture of what else they do to maintain their charitable status including loan of premises, access to science labs for other schools, access to playing fields, summer schools, assisted lessons etc. Before making a sweeping statement do access the full picture.

Same for Home Ed parents but they don't get to claim charitable status.

@Snugglemonkey

The average person is benefiting. The tax payer does not have to pay for children in private school.

Do you think thst the same argument should apply and we should pay parents who decide to homeschooling their children?

Clearly that is a false equivalence. The equivalent to paying homeschoolers would be me being paid to choose private!

15% might be about 3K, which I think is roughly what a place in a state secondary costs each year. So the status quo is that private parents are paying nearly 7 times the cost of a state education, and you think a sensible reform would be to raise that to 8 times, so that those paying nothing and receiving a taxpayer subsidy of 3K a year can get an even bigger subsidy? I think a more sensible reform would be to get all the state school parents who can afford to to pay 3K a year. That would raise vastly more money, and would match a less batshit-crazy definition of fairness.

It’s either providing better funding per pupil for state schools, or going into other government spending.

Whichever it is, though, if we closed all private schools tomorrow we’d have 8% more pupils in state schools, and would either have to accept that each pupil now got less funding, or find the money from somewhere else.

That’ll be because they aren’t charging their children fees.

15% of the average is £2k (based on ISC numbers)

I don't understand why people think of it as 'paying twice'. The proportion of taxes that go towards education come regardless of whether you have a kid in education. Education is a benefit to society, an educated workforce is a driver of our economy. It is in all our interests to ensure public education is well funded. It's sad that some see it as inadequate for their children but paying for private education, like private healthcare is a luxury that should be taxed as such.

Taxes subsidise public transport but car owners don't expect cars to be tax free because they already paid for public transport.

Where do academies stand? Are some academies associated with companies?

"But equally lots of the children at these schools are privately funded because their parents can either afford it and can't be bothered to go though the very difficult process of EHCP or can make the sacrifices necessary to pay until an EHCP can be organised."

Specialist independent school places are generally £50 - £100k or more a year and they mostly only take LA funded pupils.

And if a child requires a residential placement which can happen regardless of how close to home the school is, the placement can be £200K a year.

If it was up to me I'd privatise all education and give all parents tax credits to use towards their child's education.

I work for an independent school and think we should pay tax and VAT.

I’m not sure how it works in England, but where I live, schools are funded based on the number of students. So if parents opt out of the state system, the state schools won’t get the money that would have flowed to them with the extra student. The parents paying taxes is irrelevant to the school system.

Is this only applicable to people paying school fees, or does it apply to other areas of expenditure, too?

I can imagine how well it will go down on other threads...

"We're having to pay an extra £2k for the holiday we're about to set off on due to issues with flights..."

"If your finances are so tight that you can not reprioritise your spending to afford £40 a week, then your holiday was always precarious anyway"

Etc...

Possibly but there's no point taxing them as it's public funded. It would be the government taxing itself.

Yes tax everyone twice, thrice and a gazillion times! Whoo hoo I loathe dogs and would prefer they are all put down. Shall we tax the RSPCA now too?

But why are private schools so special? Only 6% go private, it's a luxury choice.

Other luxuries are taxed.

There are plenty of examples where taxes fund the public version and those who decide they want a private version pay for it and are taxed on it....private healthcare, transport, security.

But somehow buying private education can't be taxed?

I don’t quite get your argument. Huge amounts of money pass through many charities and most of them help a minority of the population?

Education is not a luxury. If a parent chooses to procure education from a provider other than the state, in a free and democratic society that is a perfectly reasonable choice (as long as the provider meets minimum standards).

Eliminating private schools would not eradicate a two tier system, just reduce diversity. We need more educational diversity, not less. Different children suit different types of schooling options.

And yes to more support for homeschool and flexible schooling.