Kier starmer! He hates strivers!

[Bucketheadbucketbum]

He wants to introduce a policy to put up the cost of school fees 10 to 15%. This is a tax on hard-working parents! We slave away cutting cots everywhere living hand to mouth to try and improve our childrens future . Live in an average house average area 1 shit car no holidays work like a dog to get our kids through. We are easing the burden on the state system by choosing independent schools. We're not sending them to Eton paid by our trust fund! Why does he want to punish strivers! Tax the energy companies! So disappointed. We need a new political party. What's the point in trying to better your future.

This. The Govt pays £6k per child in state education. If I got that off my school fees, I'd happily pay VAT. Then everyone would be happy wouldn't they?

Just has to change the exemption rules, simple really.

Transport is generally VAT rated but if i buy a Helicopter, its zero rated but my next car wont be.

The VAT "default" for independent fee-paying schools is "These establishments require payment for the education they provide, so their education is a business activity"

The VAT exemption on their fees arise because they are charities.
If independent schools don't have charitable status then, no, I don't think they should receive VAT exemptions that are based on having charitable status.

(Incidentally, independent schools can also receive business rates relief if they are registered charities - I'd be in favour of them losing that, too)

The EFL providers' VAT exemption is not dependent on charitable status.
Private tutors are only VAT exempt if they can meet certain conditions.
The same goes for other educational businesses.

Removing the charitable status of independent schools will have no effect on the other things that you mentioned and I don't particularly feel the need to consider the "whataboutery" of these other areas when thinking about the charitable (or otherwise) status of fee-paying independent schools.

Why do you keep saying 'race to the bottom' OP?

I don't understand.

Private education is a luxury item.

@Qazwsxefv I think your example isn't all that common. For the vast majority of parents sending their child to private school, it is a choice.

Using our most local private again as an example.

They pay ONE 100% bursary a year. Most are only 10% which if you can't afford the fee's, you can't afford 90% of the fees.
On top of the fee's there are requests all over their website for donations etc.

They have 5 staff earning more than £150k a year. They received £160k in charity donations last year. £220k in government grants.
They had income of £16m financial year ending April 2021. Expenditure of £16m.

@VivX so you'd also be happy if independent schools lost their charitable status, but gained the VAT exempt status applicable to other educational services (EFL, swimming lessons etc)?

You pay for, receive, and benefit from, a service. The schools profit from your payment. Of course they should pay their taxes!!

He wants to introduce a policy to put up the cost of school fees 10 to 15%. This is a tax on hard-working parents! We slave away cutting cots everywhere living hand to mouth to try and improve our childrens future . Live in an average house average area 1 shit car no holidays work like a dog to get our kids through. We are easing the burden on the state system by choosing independent schools. We're not sending them to Eton paid by our trust fund! Why does he want to punish strivers! Tax the energy companies! So disappointed. We need a new political party. What's the point in trying to better your future.

He wants to freeze the wages of hard-working minimum earners. This is a burden on millions of people!
We slave away cutting costs everywhere living hand to mouth to try & not default on rent/mortgage & lose our home.
Live in an average house average area 1 shit car no holidays work like a dog to get our kids fed & reasonably warm.
We are easing the burden on the state system by doing the grunt work that the wealthy think themselves too good for.
We're not earning enough to have anything left at the end of the month, but we work all the hours we can manage! Why does he want to punish strivers!
Renationalise the energy companies! So disappointed. We need a new political party. What's the point in trying to keep your head above water when Sunak & pals are milking the system to ensure tax breaks for the wealthy, soaring inflation & nothing but the prospect of a poverty-struck old age ahead for ordinary people?

There! - fixed that for you @Bucketheadbucketbum

@ClangingBell

yes we applied to the three nearest schools in a 5mile radius on time - allowed three choices. Was mid covid time so there were no meetings about how it worked or anything.

Two were full. The nearest (5 min away) went to siblings only as it’s only a half class entry per year and we were too far from the second (2 miles away next village) to get in. The third we did get a place (3.5 miles away next village in the other direction and also the other direction to my work) in but as it’s not in our LA they won’t provide transport (maybe this was an error to apply, they used to provide a mini bus for kids from the village but they don’t anymore - well they do provide a bus but we can’t get a seat on it as we “chose”the school and we can’t buy a seat for her anymore due to rules , we couldn’t work out a way for us to get her there and back each day - I have been told the thing I should have done was list a different full school further away in the LA as third choice that she wouldn’t get into as full and then then would have sent her to this out of area one and they she would have a seat on the bus).

So after we have to turn down the place at school three as no transport she goes to the bottom of the councils list to allocate a place and gets one out of LA but same county in the nearest city…..which is unsuitable and stupid as I said in post above

I probably messed up picking the closer but out of area choice rather than an in area but further away school and so the council can claim it’s all our fault that they can’t find her a space. It’s all politics and funding on a loc level - they don’t appear to want to send kids out of the county area as that i assume costs more money. They make it so confusing and then say it’s all your fault and then pressure you to delist your child so their figures look better. They agree we need a new school in the village but the developer that should have build it with the new houses didn’t and then went bust and the council say they can’t afford to.

Yep. Apparently ALL parents of state school kids aren’t “strivers”. You are only strivers if your kids attend independent schools, everyone else is lazy or some such bullshit

I suspect Labour won't be able to push this through without a legal challenge. The Independent Schools Council won a long running legal battle relating to charitable status in 2011, and I'd full expect them to go through the same process again, so it could be many years before it's implemented. www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15305699

The alternative, of course, if you already have DC at a private school, is to pay the fees in advance before this goes ahead. Even if it means re-mortgaging your house, it would be cheaper than funding an extra 20% tax, depending on how much longer your DC have to go. An extra 20% for my 2 DC, through to the end of 6th form is about £60k, so I'll be paying all fees up front the day Labour get in.

@Qazwsxefv Not having any choice but to send your child to a private school is a very unusual situation, come on, don't be disingenuous my comment was about the majority and you are clearly bright enough to know that. Don't project your anger about your unique situation on to my opinion about a majority.

You are very unlucky but there can't be many cases like yours in England. I don't know where you live and I believe you when you say this is your experience but for most people it is a choice. The OP was a general thread about private school education and how awful that they would have to pay extra for their choice. You are labouring a point that in your case it isn't a choice, okay, we get that and that is shocking (blame the way education funding has been administered) but it is derailing a thread that is borne from entitlement. The intentionality is different from your individual case.

I bet you pay for private health insurance.

You bet wrongly. I do have a private dental plan because there are no NHS places available near here.

@SafeMove

i doubt we are the only ones but yes we will be a minority - but those of us that live rurally are a minority but it will be a decent number. The councils are good at massaging the figures to hide all these kids that get removed from waiting lists as the only state provision offered was unworkable. Each year on here you get load of parents whose kid doesn't have a workable state option for schools

And that’s excluding SEN from the equation. A quicklook at the government website tells me that 25,022 pupils in the private sector have EHCPs. It doesn’t tell me if they are in in specialist SEN schools but I imagine a good proportion of them are. Sometimes these are even council funded places as there is no suitable state provision. The education boards on here are full of kids who don’t have a school place whom the councils have essential wiped their hands off or provide some paltry tutoring a few days a week.

I am all for better state provision and maybe the removal of all private schools but there needs to be sufficient appropriate state provision first for all children.

id only tax after 6k or even better provide a 6k rebate to parents privately educating. I vote labour because I want a better state education (and health system) for all but I’m not hearing from them how they will provide a school for my child just how they want to charge me more money

None of that explains why private schools should have charitable status for tax purposes.

The additional tax this will raise will be exactly the same as the additional money the NHS received after Brexit.

Our school provides a significant amount of extra curricular activities to the local state schools (for free) as well as offering many scholarships and bursaries. It will stop doing this if they didn't have their charitable status.

Rich people wanting the less well off to pay for their lifestyle is nothing new.

We are currently handing out billions in energy subsidy to extremely wealthy folk and companies.... why not let them off VAT on school fees too?

No, that money didn’t exist and this does. And state schools can use it to fix their roofs rather than waiting for the patronising rich people to offer the odd use of their private school cricket pitch.

Pretty much, it’s working in the same way too.

The money won't exist though, when there is a mass exodus of private school kids into state school. As nobody will be paying the school fees which VAT can be added to.

@Qazwsxefv So you turned down a place at a school 3.5 miles away? You couldn't do what the rest of us who work full time do and use wrap around care? Why should transport be provided? You find a local breakfast club, or a childminder who will drop to that school. Like the rest of us!

'As nobody will be paying the school fees which VAT can be added to'

Well, sounds as if these million ££ businesses, sorry I mean schools, will need to decide whether or not they want to pass additional costs onto their wealthy customers - I mean parents- or not.

As businesses, which they are, they can decide what to charge for their services.
They also have the kind of facilities that can be rented out or used for other purposes to generate income. Some sit on campuses that could house half a dozen schools, but are used for the benefit of a few hundred children.

I doubt any of them will struggle, and I also doubt that they'll suddenly up their fees by the amount of VAT either.
They could decide to increase them by a few percent. Or not at all.

OP is bleating on as if Labour want to take money straight out of their bank account and give it to 'the poor'.
Taking away charitable status from a business that is not a charity is the right thing to do.

Oh, so all these rich people can only keep their kids in private schools due to the current state subsidy via the taxation system? Sounds like they should be striving a little harder.