To think that improving state schools needs people to pay an e.g. a state school tax?

[Theyhadsomehoneyandplentyofmoney]

What with the current hoo ha about VAT on private school and commentary about equality and privilege.. wouldn’t it make sense to vastly improve state schools? And in order to do so obviously the government needs more cash.

Isn’t it reasonable therefore to ask anyone using state schools, to pay a bit of tax for that, in order to improve all said schools from their (often) current dire state?

Id be happy to pay more general income tax to increase school funding (as one of the 1%).

However, the VAT on private school fees is separate. Private schools had exemption from VAT for largely historical reasons, as charities (many of the famous schools like christs hospital etc were genuinely set up to educate poorer children hundreds of years ago, often not actually charging fees initially).

The vast majority of these schools no longer provide anything like enough social value to justify benefitting from the charitable exemption, so the suggestion is it no longer be given.

All education is exempt from VAT. Starmer is proposing to introduce VAT on education. At the moment only on the private school part of education. This may or may not change in future.

As many people have raised the issue that state schools needing improving (on this thread but also many other places) - I suggested perhaps taxes need to be paid more for state schools. To improve them. Not really sure why this is controversial. They won’t be improved otherwise. It’s not rocket science. The money isn’t there.

So with the best will in the world, you’ve missed the point.

The VAT exemption has nothing to do with charitable status. Around half of schools are not charitable but do not have to charge VAT on fees because of the exemption entrenched in VAT legislation. The Labour Party have dropped plans to strip schools of charitable status.

Private schools aren’t charities, so shouldn’t be VAT exempt.

As for state schools, I think we’re all paying enough.

• Given that state school parents make up 93% of the UK's parents, that's rather a huge base to 'hit', particularly when years of underfunding have left state schools bereft of sufficient resources.

• It's not 6 weeks' notice, is it? The policy has been known about for months. Then they need to enact it. And even then, private schools are very unlikely to pass on the full cost to parents. They're businesses, so they will act like any other business that needs to find savings without hitting their customer base.

• 20% on top of "the £7k the state pays for their dc's education" is still only around half of that spent per pupil in private education - I.e. a small drop in the ocean towards redressing the balance. I strongly suspect your ability to buy advantage will remain intact.

• Very happy to pay additional taxes to improve education, and outcomes, for all rather than just the privileged 7%. Progressive taxation means those, like me, who can afford a little more will do so. The reality though is that many of the private school brigade do not like paying additional taxes that will benefit all. Because there's no such thing as society, is there?

How?

I’m not sure how many times this has to be explained. VAT and charitable status are entirely separate . Half of private schools are not charities. Charitable status is not changing. The VAT position might be. It mystifies me how people can have strong opinions on something they clearly don’t understand.

I just think if you don't like it you don't have to pay it.

There are state schools available. If they are good enough for the other 93% of children they are good enough for yours.

Stop going through charades of pretending to do something when all they do is find ways to line their cronies' pockets for starters.

Are they good enough though. Some are. Lots aren’t. We all know that.

@Another76543 a bit like all the posters here with opinions on state schools they don't use?

How do you know they haven’t used them? You don’t.

Errr because the gap literally means the distance between top and bottom..?

👀

Lots of people who use private schools do have experience of state schools though.

Your comment was “the equality gap widens”. That’s measured in the difference between the top and the bottom of the scale.

As many others have said, they're not VAT exempt because they're charities. They're two completely separate things.

They're VAT exempt because ALL school education is VAT exempt.

And how are the bottom being helped by this policy?

Just imagine if the govt actually put in £15 k per year per pupil for state school

Oh no the govt put in the bare minimum, even though we pay tax! Why an earth would we pay more?

We fund raise, help out and turn up.

What’s that got to do with your comment? Your comment was trying to make a big point about how this policy will widen the equality gap. It won’t make it any wider than it is now. It depends entirely on how the money is spent as to how differences will be made so neither I nor you can make a call on that.

YABU if only because no earmarked tax ever remains earmarked for long.

My children are in state school but I'm absolutely against VAT on education.

Parents who send children to private schools already save government billions by vacating spaces.

Exactly. We shouldn't forget Brown/Blair increasing NIC and promising the increase was ring fenced "to save the NHS" - well that worked well!! They increased it again a year or two later. I still remember all the slogans about "only a matter of days left to save the NHS". The result of course was just throwing more money into the leaky bucket.

How much more tax are YOU willing to pay to increase state education funding to £15k per pupil? Or are you one of those people who always wants "someone else" to pay?? We can't all want the perfect World but not actually pay towards it ourselves. It's a numbers game. There are relatively few billionaires/millionaires, and you could charge them all another few million each per year in tax and it still wouldn't bring in the same amount of tax revenue as an extra 1% on income tax or 1% on VAT which would be paid by tens of millions of people! Everyone seems to ignore the behavioural aspects - at the margins, tax increases/decreases really does change behaviour and that is often detrimental to the UK. We really need to stop the politics of envy and start thinking about practical ways of increasing tax revenue AND making public spending more efficient. Lazily shouting "tax the rich" isn't the answer.

I would DEFINITELY pay more tax for better public services. I’m a realist - we can’t carry on at today’s unsustainable levels and expect a decent service. But I don’t want to see anyone left behind.

With a very heavy heart we reinvested the NI reduction the tories gave us plus a bit more to buy private health insurance for the family after I had a very lucky escape with what could have been a long term orthopaedic issue (right place right time). If I hadn’t been seen then I would have possibly been out of work for months due to long waiting lists so can’t afford for an unexpected issue to happen again to either of us.

However, I would happily invest that money back into public services in a heartbeat if it meant genuine improvements for all.