To not see how the gov will make any money from taxing private schools?

[AngryHedgehog]

All the other threads seem to have descended into bunfighting over the ethics of the policy, yet I'm not really understanding how this stands to benefit the government as surely they'll be footing the bill for all the kids that move to state schools?

As a disclaimer, I don't have kids and wouldn't be able to afford to privately educate them even if I did, despite earning a half decent salary.

I'm reading that it costs around £7k per pupil per term, so it would take the VAT from around four families to fund each additional child moving to state education.

Given that this may be 4/10 kids in private education moving to state schooling, I don't see how this doesn't create a net loss as there will only be 50% more kids left in private education and there needs to be multiple times that for the VAT increase to foot the bill.

Surely I'm missing something here?

Exactly this. Our private school offers their swimming pool out to three local state schools for swimming lessons. If the parents are expected to pay 20% extra in school fees, I can’t see them being happy with this agreement to continue.

Why is it disingenuous? What don't you understand? Private school parents pay their (higher rate) taxes to the government. If their DC attended state schools, then part of that money would need to be used by the govt to educate their DC. But if they don't choose a state school, they instead choose a private one, then the money that would have funded their DC's place can be used for other things that the govt uses money from taxation for. So this is, in effect, a gift of £7690 a year to the govt for every DC that goes private.

Why is it that the politics of egalitarianism always called the politics of envy, @Elphame ?

Taxing private sector services that are there for the few when the public sector services are there for everyone seems pretty reasonable. VAT is a tax that exempts necessities, supposedly. Private education is not a necessity, it’s a luxury choice.

We earn over £100k between us and cannot afford private school 😂

Yep

If they are non dom then they probably aren't making a significant tax contribution now are they?!

Then they should lose their charitable status.

The state schools will find other swimming pools to use. The vast majority of state schools don't have access to private school swimming pools and manage.

I don’t think the majority will care if it doesn’t raise money or in fact cost money

they just begrudge anybody having more than them for whatever reason

Often in places where private schools offer their pool, the offer is taken up because there either isn’t a pool or it’s not available.

It’s really not a case of ‘they can just find another’

I earned £38k when my DC started at private school and my DH was on around £60k. It was cheaper than the day nursery I had been using previously.

No no, it’s nothing to do with the Old Testament.
Envy is one of the deadly sins from the Old Testament (so is greed). So if you are going to disparage something on the grounds you think it is envy that implies you concur with the old testament view of envy - otherwise why would anyone care?

So?:my dc's state school hires its swimming pool out to independent schools
What has that got to do with anything?

Probably not for much longer!

Leisure centres are coming under fire for budget cuts. I imagine with the way things are going, state schools will just no longer take children to swimming lessons and parents will have to do it all themselves.

It’s a headline grabbing policy which won’t make any money for the government. It’s popular with core labour voters - it is clear on this forum (which is quite left wing) that the majority of people think that private schools are for the rich, and the rich should be happy to pay (more) tax to fund everyone else. The problem is, this policy will have very little impact on ‘the rich’ (because the rich can afford a few extra thousand a year) - but it will impact the middle (thise people who sacrifice other things to be able to afford to send their kids to an independant school, or those who receive bursaries) - which will have the effect of widening the gap between the rich and the poor.

it’s an ill thought out populist policy based on envy in my opinion.

They won't though. The ISC have already taken the Charity Commission to court over this and won. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15305699#:~:text=Independent%20schools%20have%20won%20a,charities%20in%20England%20and%20Wales.

The ruling says: "It is for the charity trustees of the school concerned to address and assess how their obligations might best be fulfilled in the context of their own particular circumstances.
"Not all of the benefits which the school provides to those other than students paying full fees need to be for the poor. We see no reason why the provision of scholarships or bursaries to students who can pay some, but not all, of the fees should not be seen as for the public benefit"

It just makes a good headline, that seems to be as far as the policy has been thought through. We can look forward to more politics of envy for many years, where anyone who's achieved anything is the bad guy.

Ironic considering they can only impose VAT on private schools due to Brexit.

Our closest, cheapest independent is £8777 per term so £2194 per month… that doesn’t include uniform and trips etc. I guess with one dc we could downsize but we have a standard family home so it wouldn’t save much. I don’t know anyone on our kind of salaries with dc in independent schools except military families or those where a parent works at the school and gets a discount.

Yep. The maths ain’t mathing

They also seem to forget that local authorities up and down the country pay for students to attend private settings if it’s part of their ECHP and local mainstream schools can’t cope with their needs.

Also taxing education means holiday clubs, after school clubs, breakfast clubs etc. will now be charging VAT

Not true. Non-Dom status means that those people won’t be taxes on their worldwide income, just their UK income. So if you live and work in the UK your UK in one will be taxed.

I would also like yo point out that whilst the average total cost of educating a state school child may be £7.5 k , that is not the marginal cost .The cost of each additional child joining the state system is much less than that.
Also who do you think has paid to t re in most private school teachers, who has paid bursaries to students for ITT- the state!

The seven deadly sins are not from the Old Testament, they are old Catholic teaching. Do not envy (or covet) is the tenth commandment though.

I think you need proper statistics rather than just guessing 4/10.

Some parents will just pay the VAT, some schools won't pass it all on, none of the boarding pupils will be bothering your local state schools (especially those from abroad), some parents will move their children to a cheaper private school instead, etc. Moving a child from a school where they are settled is not undertaken nearly as lightly as you seem to think though.

90% of Independant schools will definitely be passing it along as they’re struggling as a sector in general.

Not sure if this has already been said, apologia so, but that’s not how VAT works

anyone selling to the consumer (in this case, the school) must add 20%, this added amount is paid to the government

yes they can reclaim vat on purchases, but they just take this off the amount they pay the government

the net impact on the school is zero. They pay all the vat they collect to the government and they claim back all the vat they have paid out. The only party paying any tax is the end consumer