VAT on school fees not applied retroactively- ultra wealthy are safe

[Kitkat189]

VAT on school fees won’t be applied retroactively to school fees paid before 29 July meaning if you paid your child’s entire education upfront, you escape the 20% increase. I know people who did this in the hopes that this would happen and now it has. TELL ME HOW THIS IS FAIR??? The ultra wealthy won’t be impacted by this at all while other families are going to have to move their children. To those of you who support VAT on school fees, please know that it won’t apply to everyone and that some of the revenues from this will be lost. If you think it won’t matter because very few will have prepaid, you should disagree with this on principle.

regardless of where you stand on the topic of VAT on school fees, I think we can agree this is fundamentally unfair.

Primary school age.

As I said I’m not keen to move them mid year although I’m also really not keen to pay an extra 20% starting January.

starting to look at options in local state schools and I guess the time of move will depend on what we’re able to sort there.

So they’ll be back in September? but maybe just for the term? in which case you’ll have to give notice on day 1 of new school year

We literally just found out about the VAT increase being implemented from January

i don’t mean to be thick but surely we’ve pretty much known for well over a term, for many months in fact, that this was very very likely to come in?

VAT won't be reclaimable anyway as it's not a valid business expense!

I always said that the VAT on fees won't affect the really rich and may well make Private schooling even more elite.
Oh well, what can you do? Pay it or find a State alternative

I know it makes me scratch my head when private school parents complain the VAT will make private school only for the rich!!

it is the super rich i have seen

OP you just come across bitter as some people have either a. Been clever and avoided the vat or b. Have more money than you.

Have a tissue...

What do they mean by connected people?

Well back in March, I did not know for sure that Labour would win, even if I knew it was likely. And I did not know what campaign promises they would keep or break. And even if VAT on private schools was on the keep list (which many of my connections more in the know than myself seemed to question) I certainly had no idea they would choose to implement it from January, even in the middle of a school year. Maybe I should have had a crystal ball like you?
I am in general pro labour but I think this is one of the in principle ok policies they have in practice implemented in a maximum painful way for many households. As a parent it’s kind of hard to forgive them for the “how”, even if the “what” makes sense.

did you vote for them?

I think they always looked like using this as a blunt tool without thought to families or children impacted

The sooner and harder for people the better

if i knew that the intro of VAT to fees would definitely mean my children have to be withdrawn… then i prove my would have got them on waiting lists for local schools by March as it was all over the news by then as something to pretty much definitely accept as happening

🤷

November 2023 they’d confirmed as such

@AhaHa that last line isn’t my views but what I think was motivating policy

It’s a pity it’s not done with thought to children but there you go

Comments like this really do my head in. If you actually have skin in the game and depend on the private sector to meet your kid's needs uprooting them is a last resort, not an easy capitulation. You don't tear them away from their support network based on headlines. Even if it was expected, you'd expect them to have some shred of humanity on the timing, not do it mid-academic year. Tone deaf.

I was wrong in retrospect but I was convinced back in March this could no way happen before September 2025 😂, if nothing else, simply because of common sense considerations for how households budget.
I feel it should not be up to the common household to figure out the details of what a government is going to do even before it’s elected.
But hey, it’s done now and I will figure out how to make the numbers work. I’m not complaining about the substance of the policy, just how it’s implemented. And as I said, my impression of private schools in my area is you pay a lot to be in a bit of a bubble where every child is tutored and it’s hard to tell how much of the performance is driven by better school vs more being spent on tutoring and extra curricular activities. So long term I’m not too fussed.

Also this!! No way I would’ve changed schools based on speculation regarding the policies of a government that was not even elected yet!!
not sure the people questioning this actually have children in school or it would probably be obvious.

huh?

My children are private

That posters children attend private school and she is pulling them because of the VAT increase

it was an ongoing point of discussion

I have children in private school

and my point was that if i knew for certain that i would have to pull out if any VAT increase…. i’d have been putting them on wait lists for state schools asap 🤷 way back winter last year

I’m confused - I thought private schools were used mostly by the MC ‘strivers’ who ‘prioritise’ their DCs education, unlike the rest of us, make sacrifices, forgo holidays, beg for the grandparents pensions etc.

You’re now telling us, OP, that actually WEALTHY people use private schools?? I’m so surprised

I suppose they have to date it from somewhere…

It's just a nonsense scenario. How could anyone know for definite when all they are working from is headlines and the party isn't even in power? It just sounds a bit holier than thou if I'm honest, but then I should expect that from these threads 🤷🏻

‘We literally just found out about the VAT increase being implemented from January’

mmm, long time coming though. Very long time. Anyone who buried their head in the sand only has themselves to blame.

We’re now governed by a load of comprehensive educated people, who some how still succeeded in life, and they don’t seem to be an enamoured of private education as the Tories were. Thank goodness.

Yes, since the 1990s apparently, so it was completely obvious that now in a post-pandemic world, where children have just had the disruption of COVID, that this would be the time to actually implement it.

The govt is not ‘comprehensive educated.’ Starmer just happened to live in a grammar area. So did Reeves in Kent. Both went to Oxbridge.