it's daft to think parents with kids in private school have money to burn?

[Popgoestheweaselagain]

Just got asked by my school what would be the impact if they had to pay VAT, adding 20% to fees. My response was 'I'd try to keep my child in the school, but ....'. I think almost all parents would respond this way. Alarmed, did a quick google, and found this is Labour policy. Next time they come knocking at my door looking for my vote, I'll be telling them why they can't have it!

Now, I understand why some people are ideologically opposed to private schools, the unfariness etc. But when I hear this argument that goes something like 'Those people must have loads of money because they send their kids to private school' it kind of annoys me. Money is finite. If you've spent all your money on school fees, you obviously don't have it anymore!

Good analogy.

Anyone else admit to being a complete hypocrite?

I fundamentally disagree with private education. Something so utterly and almost unfathomably impacts the course of someone’s entire life and in all likelihood generations of their family to follow - should NOT be something that you can pay for.

However I went to private school and enormously benefited and… so do my children (and I pretty much crawled over hot crawl and broke glass to get them there and it gives me huge pleasure to see how happy and all the astonishing opportunities and privilege they have)

I do recognise truly unpleasant hypocrisy but when it comes to my children…. Principles go out the door ie i I don’t believe in the death penalty unless someone ended the life of one of my children in which I would be dedicate my dedicate my life to campaigning for the introduction of the death penalty!

I don't think any education should be taxed and I feel the same about medical treatment. Peoplemdont have money to burn, they just work hard and strive to be successful, the people in the opposite situation should be judged for not getting off their arses.

Private education is a luxury that is not necessary and the majority doesn’t have, as such parents who pay for it do have money to burn.

If you can’t afford 20% more you can’t afford that luxury and will need to use the readily available free education on offer the same as everybody else.

I don't know the solution. I don't think that saying "I can't afford nice things, so you can't have them either" is it though

I'm not sure anything you've said before supports this statement. but anyway, it's not about you not having it, just that you should pay full whack, e.g. no charitable status for private schools.

Are you saying that people on low incomes are there due to lack of working?

I can't see, logistically, how to make private school fees liable for VAT, but not other training/schools/universities etc.

And I can't see how making all these training opportunities 20% more expensive, just to catch private schools, isn't throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Children's Education, no matter how fancy the setting/small the class sizes isn't a luxury. Children's shoes don't attract VAT no matter how much they cost etc. It's not the price of a thing, or whether you can get that thing for free elsewhere that determines if it's a luxury.

And I have no horse in this race - in the country I live in, private school is affordable for many more people (albeit generally religious, but you take what you can get) and state school provision is excellent - although we do also have to pay towards that in the form of contributions and books/equipment purchase.

All my kids are educated privately currently and to be honest not all the teaching has even been that great. I’m not really concerned that levying VAT on private schools is going to pull down something amazing.

Nurseries have to pay VAT on everything unless they are part of a school. It’s one of the reasons they may ask for help paying for resources and one of the things the government doesn’t seem to factor into their funding costs. Removing the need to pay VAT would help keep nursery fees down more than changing ratios.

I used to read the accounts sent to parents annually by my DC's independent school (thry received a bursary). The vast majority of their annual income from fees beneficiaries etc goes on staff wages no VAT is paid. There is no VAT on food and Im under the impression maybe erroneously there is also no VAT on books, both were covered in the fees in their school not charged as as extra so I'm not sure why fees would rise by 20% PA if VAT was charged. I understand why many feel that independent school fees are a "luxury".

Nurseries have to pay VAT on everything unless they are part of a school. It’s one of the reasons they may ask for help paying for resources and one of the things the government doesn’t seem to factor into their funding costs. Removing the need to pay VAT would help keep nursery fees down more than changing ratios.

But if they didn't have to pay VAT, then they'd have to charge it - so you would just have 20% put on top of your fees - probably cheaper to buy a box of wet wipes each term!

@robertpaulson Poor people pay huge amounts of income tax. Some of this is to subsidise a place in a private school claiming charitable status, that they don't use.

It isn't actually the case, though, that people think that all parents who send their kids to private schools could necessarily afford to carry on doing so if they had to start paying VAT. There is no misconception. We completely understand and accept that some parents would struggle. It's simply that we don't think that fact alone is important enough to not follow through on the policy.

There are lots of luxury items that are made more expensive by the addition of VAT, and sometimes, that extra 20% will put those luxuries beyond the reach of those who might have been able to afford them without the tax. That's just life...nobody has a right to luxury items that they can't afford.

If kids have to go to state schools because their parents can't afford private, that really isn't the end of the world. It's what happens to the vast majority of kids in this country anyway. And yes, of course, it might be difficult for individual kids to have to move schools mid way through their schooling, but that was always a risk if parents decided to send them private without an adequate financial buffer to protect them in situations like this. The VAT isn't a new argument - it is one that has been around for many years.

Rising costs and mortgage rates are going to make things tight for a lot of families who haven't got a substantial financial buffer in any case. There will be plenty of kids who have to move to the state sector regardless of the VAT issue. They will cope, I'm sure. Whether some of the provincial private schools will cope or not is a different matter - if they lose a significant number of pupils, then I imagine some will fold. At the end of the day, if they don't have a viable business model, then that's just the way it is. I see no reason to prop them up with tax breaks that aren't justified.

@tiredwardsister Because the fees would have 20% VAT added to them, so the fees would go up by 20%!

I respect your honesty. I know a few people like you.

To be honest, while I too am ideologically opposed to private education, my principles would also go out of the window if I actually thought it was the best option for my dd. As it stands, I don't think it's worth the money so I send her to state instead, but I would absolutely go private if I thought she would really benefit.

I think it's perfectly possible to be ideologically opposed to private education and to believe that all kids should have equal access to good schools, while simultaneously wanting the best for your own child within the imperfect system that we have. Many parents do the same within the state sector. We bought a house in the catchment area for a great school. I wish there wasn't a postcode lottery for schools, and I want to see that addressed, but in the meantime, I'm not going to send her to a crap school when there is a better one available. That's just common sense, and I can't imagine that there are many parents who would send their kids to a failing school purely to make a political point.

@NuNameNuMe what are you classing as “poor” from an income perspective? Minimum wage? Income tax on minimum wage is approx £1200 per annum. Doesn’t even cover the cost of funding their own child’s school place never mind anyone else’s. In fact to be a net contributor you need to earn much more than that. Over £30k at least.

I can't muster up much sympathy I'm afraid. Private education is a luxury.
I used to have a holiday abroad each year and a fortnightly cleaner. I stopped them because they were luxuries that I could no longer afford.
In times of financial difficulty why would the wealthy expect tax breaks on their luxury whilst middle and lower earners do not?

@Screamifyouwanttogofast It is still not charitable status that provides the exemption - being an exempt body is not connected to charitable status. The VAT legistlation says:

"An organisation is likely to be an eligible body, where it’s a charity, professional body or company:

that cannot and does not distribute any profit it makes

with any profit that might arise from its supplies of education, research or vocational training is used solely for the continuation or improvement of such supplies"

Because they don't fully grasp what would happen if private schools closed, or if all the parents pulled their kids out.

Are you mad? Not only would I impose vat I'd also remove the charitable status they have. Private schools are a business. You choose to send your children there so tough

Also on top of paying tax on the earnings you spend on fees.

That would never happen though.

This is it and I mentioned it up thread and posters keep trotting out that it’s a business. It is not a business, as it cannot hold its profits in an account, pay shareholders etc. All the money it makes is spent on the the delivery of its service, which in this case is education - salaries, overheads, extracurricular provision etc. If they open up grounds and facilities to the local community and schools, then this will also be funded from its budget.

1. This would put an increased burden on the state system and the intervention would cost more than it makes.
2. There would likely be no or minimal sized pay increases to parents in medium-large size, good independent schools. They typically will have 20-50% of children on bursaries or scholarships. If they lose charitable status that financial support would be the first thing to stop. So all this would do is send the less well off back into the state system.

This is the ‘politics of envy’ stuff that causes Labour electoral problems. Tony Blair’s government focused on investment in the state to pull people and standards up, not pull people down. That’s the difference. This is why current Labour is seen as not aspirational.

Surely all that would happen is private schools would only be used by the international super rich taking advantage of the weak pound. Then all of the middle class private school kids would be pushed into the state schools. House prices near the best performing ones would rocket and you’d have private schools by stealth anyway.

It’s also quite weird how some people feel the presence of private school parents and children in their state school will automatically improve the state schools. These aren’t magical humans. Or would the next step be to force the private school parents to pay their fees into the state schools and force the private school kid to sit and befriend the most disruptive kids?

I genuinely don’t understand the British mentality of ‘anyone who has more than me should have it taken away’. It’s so strange. No solutions to help rise the tide so all boats are raised. Tony Blair understood ambition and implemented a plan to close the gap through investment not clobbering higher paid working people?