To not sign friends petition about school fees ?

[Whereforartthoudave]

Or more to the point tell her why I’m not?

friend grp - 3 families out of 9 send their kids to private school. One dad has decided to start a petition re Private schools losing their charity status - as in it’s not fair if they do. His DW has sent it round this morning.

Stupidly rather than just ignore it - when she said will you sign, I said, sorry no - Private schools are businesses not charities so I agree with the proposed change.

Now she wants to know WHY exactly.

YANBU - ignore it and don’t get into a bun fight over private versus state school. I’m not judging their choices but I don’t think the schools should have tax breaks.

YABU - tell her why. The why being I don’t agree with private schools at all, but her money her choice. And think it’s laughable that they have charity status when the majority ( and this is backed up by actual stats) do virtually nothing to earn it.

Well, as she HAS asked I would tell her I only sign petitions about subjects I care about and the fate of private schools ain´t one of them. End of.

Not quite. There will be certain schools that feel the benefit of this, but that’s it. Not every student is going to leave their private school anyway, but even if they did what would happen is the same thing that happens with desirable state schools now - house price increases, and those who cannot afford this forced out. In effect creating private schools without the fees.

To be honest OP, for the harmony of the friend group, I wouldn't go into any details of my thoughts!! I'd just say "oh I don't know enough about it either way but good luck with the petition" or something vague

Because it’s never going to happen.

political people patronise specific state schools already. They are never affected by what they impose on others. Communism never works, however invested the majority are in what is supposed to be provided.

The extremely successful UK private education sector creates goodwill towards and business for the UK globally.

That can move to Ireland, Poland, Argentina etc. Top schools already have branches in HK, Singapore, China.

What is never going to happen? The removal of charity status? Why would that cause top schools to move and what has it to do with communism? The existing tax breaks for educational businesses is not exactly capitalism in action is it?

Sorry, I see it was in the msg I was replying to. Do you consider Finland's educational system communist?

‘We’re now looking at an extra 8k a year we had not budgeted for, as well as yearly price rises which we had.’

The I suggest you take that up with the business who run your child’s education. If they’re putting up their business charges ie fees then they should be able to tell you why.
And if they’re intending on passing on any future costs to their clients - you- then now would be the time to have the conversation.

The 8k is VAT. So they won’t have an option but to charge it.

all I said is that we’re budgeting as how to pay it until we can move to the state sector at a natural exit point and have the final two years in state.

Two children and fees of circa 20k. 4K each in VAT per year which we need to cut spending elsewhere to partially pay and pay from savings for the rest

I agree with you. Never understood why private school had charity status. Pleased to hear common sense re this now.

‘The 8k is VAT. So they won’t have an option but to charge it. ‘

Not true, these ‘charities’ aren’t paying biz rates - you really should speak to your school - you are a paying client for a business service after all - and have them clarify for you.

And as for the annual increases - well, that’s a separate matter but again - speak to them. DF kid’s school now has ‘world class ‘ sports facilities that they spend 10s of millions on. A cricket ground that rivals those of national teams apparently.
So if their hiking U.K. their prices at your school, they should at least be able to tell you what they’ve spent the money in.

Essentially, your school is a business. If its fees are too high it may lose customers.
So rather than hike up prices because their costs have increased and lose customers - you/your kids- the business should absorb those costs and leave the charges/price as is.

and make less money. Because as many fee paying parents are pointing out - their schools don’t make a ‘profit’ or aren’t supposed to anyway.

The labour proposal is to put VAT on school fees of 20%. School fees currently costing 20k will therefore be 20k plus VAT at 20%. They may or may not be able to reduce school fees from the 20k but I suspect not given the cost of salary increases etc, so they will be charging the VAT as above if the new rules get brought in. That’s how funds will raised under the policy.

nothing to do with business rates which , if the charitable exemption is removed are very small in comparison to VAT on school fees.

I see, so you're also hoping to take unfair advantage of the university admission system. Lots of people like this around. I hope university admissions wise up to this sooner rather than later.

The VAT is nothing to do with the school costs etc - the fees are, but on the VAT on top will not be in their control.

the whole point of the policy is to raise money from
charging VAT. And since we will need to pay the current fees plus the VAT, I was just saying that we’re already reducing spending elsewhere to try to meet that extra cost, which is not imposed by the school (and not in their control) but by the VAT element.

@BlurredEdges so what would you have me do when we can no longer afford private education until 18. The whole policy is built on premise that those who can afford to and want to pay more for private can do so, and the state option is there for those that can’t or don’t want to.

i don’t want to disrupt my kids exam years so we will
have to manage until they start the next lot
of exams - a levels - and now this apparently is wrong too!

lots of people will be in the same boat. So this will be one of the obvious consequences to the policy - and I assumed thought of - the government doesn’t get to demand that I spend more money than I can afford to keep them In independent education when I have the option to revert to state at a non disruptive point. We will obviously have to take what available state places there are, but since there is a lot of talk about the extra places that may be needed for such pupils, it won’t come as a shock to anyone that this is a potential consequence.

YANBU. Not specifically because of the topic but you shouldn’t sign a petition regarding a topic you don’t believe in. I’ve ignored friend’s petitions before simply because it’s a topic I don’t support but signed others because it’s something I do support. It’s nothing personal.

I think you're missing the point that @Whereforartthoudave is making, which is that businesses always have the choice about whether to pass on additional costs to their customers. Yes of course the school has to pay the 20% (if that comes to pass), but it can choose whether or not to pass that additional cost on – it could choose to reduce fees by 20%, so in effect the customers still pay the same and the school takes the financial hit.

I suspect each school would carry out a cost-benefit analysis to see whether it would pay for it to take the hit rather than pass the extra cost on and risk losing a percentage of its customers. As its most simplistic, for example, if the extra 20% cost meant that 25% (say) of its customers stopped using it, then clearly it would not be a sound business decision.

I would have thought that removing the charitable status from private schools will make it worse for non private schools as it will hit specialist schools for learning disabilities and the ND hardest and could potentially force them to shut meaning that many will have nowhere that they can send their children that is suitable if there isn't a state run one nearby

Yes I understand that, but the fees currently don’t run at 20% surplus so I don’t think that will be likely. We’re budgeting for a worst case scenario but agreed, there could be a smaller increase on that basis.

How convenient that the only possible option for you is the one that has been widely used to game the university admissions system.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-new-oxbridge-trick-go-private-then-switch-to-state-vc29n2nft

There is one thing that all pushy Notting Hill parents have in common: the idea that the prestigious British university system is one they can “play”. After all they’ve gamed both the stock market and the property market. So when Oxbridge made it clear it would be cutting down on the numbers of privately educated students accepted, their first reaction was: watch me.
I just met a 16-year-old student who told me he was leaving his glamorous private school in Oxford to attend a high-ranking sixth-form college in deepest London (where his family have a second home). His parents interrupted to say this was for financial reasons (the kitchen alone was at least four terms’ worth of tuition), because the idea of their son taking the school place away from someone less fortunate sits badly socially, even among bulldozer parents.
Still, they aren’t the only ones. Yesterday it was reported that private school pupils are a third more likely to get into Cambridge if they move to a state sixth form. No wonder the well-to-do are trying their luck.

Well since I’m not in charge of labours policy I have no control over this. There’s nothing I’d like more than to keep them in the school that I thought would best suit them, but if the government policies mean I can’t afford that, and the government itself knows this is a potential consequence, perhaps they should transition this in rather than bringing in immediately if parents changing behaviour in line with policy is such an issue.

some people may be able to afford what the increases will be and good on them. But surely no one thought that if fees go up by the level of VAT (plus the normal fee increases) that everyone will be able to afford them? And if they can’t afford them, they will use the state alternative - the availability of which is the rationale as to why it’s appropriate to charge VAT in the first place.

Lots of stuff already - IT equipment, normal equipment, our school uses a catering company so i'd imagine that has VAT added.

But i suppose the savvy schools will make their in-house cleaners, groundsmen etc redundant and then use VAT charging external companies for those services - they they wouldn't have to pay for pensions, holidays etc etc.

‘so what would you have me do when we can no longer afford private education until 18. ‘

god, it’s a mystery! If only there was an alternative??
I doubt many people will lose sleep over some private school parents not paying for private school anymore.

you should direct you ire at the schools who appear to be trying to price many of their own parents out of the school. I suppose those rich, overseas families who want a ‘British’ education for their children are just more appealing.

Someone was asking earlier what about tutoring, private classes etc. I was just checking as I didn’t know without and we pay VAT for the kids art lessons, dance lessons, swimming lessons & drama lessons. So if you are comparing to someone paying for private classes VAT is generally charged on those.
On the other hand childcare is exempt and you could argue part of a private schools function is childcare.

On the whole how much revenue would it raise and how much would it cost to create places for the kids that opt for state school instead? Unless it’s going to a raise a decent amount of money what’s the point really. It mainly just cuts off the people who struggle and make some level of sacrifice to send kids to private school. The mega wealthy will just continue as they are so it’s not as if the policy will stop the Eton old boys club 🤷🏼‍♀️