More than private school fees will be affected by VAT

[MyNameIsFine]

Don't actually know if I'm being unreasonable here, interested to know whether this is true or not. Will the VAT on education also affect holiday clubs and afterschool clubs?

With last-minute legislation, such as the pasty tax, but this has been trailed for ages.

It would exclude wrap around care but would also exclude boarding fees for private schools which I don't think labour would intend. Its going to be very interesting to see how they do word it.

This is really quite desperate. Obviously the argument about VAT on school fees is lost. So now the only thing to cling onto is "but what if they get it wrong and inadvertently legislate that childcare will be taxed/abolished/increased in cost by 5000%/ delivered by Putin?"

How will that work for the Royal Ballet School then? Where fees are £32k a year and they spent 80% of their time dancing and the rest on formal education? Will they pay VAT on just the 20% of their classroom time?

Who says it’s “lost”? I think until we actually see the layout of how it’s going to work/implementation plans and costings, it’s not lost at all.

not to mention it needing to get voted through and us having no way of knowing how many seats parties will walk away with.

Personally, I think it will just be another failed Starmer 'promise/threat'.

there never has been much to gain from it & by the time' this, that & the other' exemption has been made it won't be worth the time & hassle of the legislation required.

File it in the 🤣🤣🤣🤣bucket.

Starmer hasn’t been PM yet, so there are no failed policies. Anyone who thinks making changes to what you say you would like to do because the financial situation changes equates to failure/weakness is a bit daft, if you ask me.

Lost?
It will only be won or lost in court because ultimately that's where it is headed. Most likely at a cost higher than what they hope to bring in from it.

On what grounds would it go to court?

I don't see how it breaches human rights, nor is it a constitutional question.

No, I'm not. One of the reasons I'm against it is the principle - don't tax education. Once the principle is in place, it could lead to other areas of education being affected in the long run. As we saw with university fees, once they're introduced, the original promises mean nothing when a new government gets in. I was thinking long term, though. Not that it would immediately impact on things like healthcare, holiday clubs, etc.

I believe it's going to the court of Grand Tantrums to be presided over by Judge Get a Grip

This is how it is with VAT though - some food incurs VAT, some does not. We don't need everything in a category to be the same.

Ultimately it is about the choices the electorate will support.

And as has been established, it isn't going to impact on holiday clubs etc. That's either a misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation.

As someone who had been involved in schools for some time I can say any policy in respect of schools is rarely thought through carefully and I can assume this one will be the same!

@qwertyqwertyqwertyqwerty and sometimes it has to go to court as it is not always clear cut

On what grounds do things go to court - just to clarify the applicability of the law? I can see how that may be the case, yes.

This.

These obvious, setting hares running threads are so tedious.

Unless it's applied universally private schools will separate out as many offerings as possible to reduce the VAT burden on parents, e.g. games, after-school clubs, breakfast clubs. It is not legally defensible to tax private school parents on their wraparound care or after school sports clubs but not other clubs that are used by everybody.

Established by whom? Can you provide a source, please?

Yes, but can you have VAT rules that say a particular food only incurs VAT when it comes from a particular supplier? What's the difference between 'Read, Write, Include' supplied by a private school and 'Read, Write, Include' supplied by the State school?

https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/abolishing-private-schools-and-redistributing-their-assets-social-justice-at-the-expense-of-human-rights

Leading counsel disagree with your view.

“Legislation aimed at abolishing or impairing the existence of such schools (eg by imposing VAT or removing Charitable Status) would therefore most probably be unlawful and incompatible with the Convention.
Such was the conclusion reached by Lester and Pannick in the Joint Opinion of Anthony Lester QC and David Pannick (ISIS document No. 11) April 1987: which concluded both that the abolition of fee paying, independent education would be a direct violation of A2P1, and that the removal of charitable status from, and the imposition of VAT on, independent/private schools would probably amount to a violation too.”

Forgive me for being sceptical, but given that there were legal wranglings over VAT on Jaffa Cakes, I don’t think introducing a tax on education will be as straightforward as some seem to think.

Thank you for sharing, I will read.

Of course it won't.

It would be a refreshing change if the people who think this is an excellent idea would just explain why, without all the tedious accusations that anybody who has questions about the practical problems this policy raises is a Tory HQ plant.

I for one want to know what is the principle that makes it OK to require private schools to charge VAT on tuition fees but will probably not require private tutors and tuition centres to register for VAT if their turnover is over £85k or whatever the current limit is. Paying for private tuition confers benefit which not everybody can afford, so why is that going to be exempt? See also: private music tuition, private sports tuition and all the other beneficial extra-curricular activities which not all parents can or will pay for.

Completely impossible to find a way to tax the people who effectively buy their children places in the best state schools by buying or renting very nearby, of course.

If you scrap the vat exemption for education, all paid-for provision offered by education providers would technically have VAT added.

It will be interesting to see how it's applied. I assume it's fees only.
But we have a private school near us which offers 50 weeks of wrap around care 8-6, as well as private schooling. They charge a fixed amount per month including everything so I assume they will split out the school fees element.
Likewise the difference in boarding vs day fees is purely childcare so the top boarding schools may get away with not charging VAT on the whole amount.
It's a misguided policy IMO for these reasons, it's not as straightforward as it first seems.

To answer the OP I believe that the category of education will be made VATable, VAT works on categories of supply.