Page 38 | To ask if anyone is clued up on the challenge this week to VAT on school fees?

feesss · 2024-09-10T13:18:16+00:00

we went to look round a school this morning and we obviously asked about VAT and the lady showing us round said there has been a challenge this week so it may not happen? Is anyone aware of this? I can’t see much online about it?

SabrinaThwaite · 09/12/2024 12:42

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 12:31

@SabrinaThwaite - the staff including head in private schools with charitable status - all their salary information is on the site and freely available and taxable.
Are you accusing them of having private shareholding stakes in international schools that are run for profit? Is that a fact?

Not all - that’s quite the reach.

I was merely pointing out that private schools have none teaching financial managers in exactly the same way as academy schools.

And yes, bursars are clearly well remunerated.

Willyoujustbequiet · 09/12/2024 12:45

Xenia · 09/12/2024 12:34

Most of the academic day private schools do not have shareholders. About 7% of their receipts go back out on teachers' salaries. They may well save some funds for later projects or for their later bills of other kinds but there is no one taking profits out. This is in every school where any of my children have ever been including North London Collegiate, Haberdashers, Merchant Taylors - day private schools with no shareholders.

However subject to the law the state can do as it likes and market forces will probably then prevail as to where parents send children.

Education used per se since about the 1300s in the UK (and of course across Europe) to be charitable even if the people you taught were rich or opera goers. Labour - Blair I think - changed charity law in about 2008 such that opera houses and schools could not rely on that any more - that education on its own was not the moral good, the charity. Instead you had to help the poor too which is why richer schools had to bring in more bursaries and not very well off private schools had to start doing more for the local community eg access to their grounds

The new measure on VAT is likely to mean schools have less money so they would be allowed to cut back on bursaries and have their public benefit as something much lesser as they are allowed to cut their cloth according to their resources.

the VAT imposition is pretty nasty - it tends to be parents who are reasonably well off but not in any sense millionaires eg doctors and teachers etc who choose to pay for school fees perhaps rather than something else they might buy like a new car or bigger house. They are putting their child first over their own drug or handbag habit or whatever. Whilst I appreciate the argument that 20% of parents at sixth form level who pay school fees are lucky to have the money to fund that and the other 80% may not have the money or politically feel they want to support the local sink comprehensive by throwing their child into it for the good of the socialist cause, it does seem to be a very nasty tax to impose on what is often not particularly a luxury expense. Eg in NE England where I am from grammar schools were abolished in about 1970. My parents who had been to state grammars and became a teacher and a doctor (NHS consultant) paid private school fees for us. There was then and now no grammar school option. It is completely different in richer areas of the country like London and Cheshire where choice abounds. if state school were the same everywhere in the whole UK, Edinburgh, N Ireland, Newcastle, Kent with the same identical schools in the state system fine but that is not so.

We have some grammars in the north east but aside from that we have lots of wonderful state schools. Ours has better results than the local private ones. Indeed from reading some of these threads we are far better off than some of the areas you mention.

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 12:52

Of course Bursars are well remunerated, they have to be skilled in accounting, at least, with professional qualifications.

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 12:55

The grammars my DC attended in London beat most private schools in the country on attainment. Just look at the most recent Times league tables. Plenty of London grammars in the very top schools now. We also have plenty of great comps locally and most of our state primary schools are at leats good, if not outstanding. However, cost of living and post Covid anxiety and trauma has certainly had a big impact, not just on children and families, also on teachers’ mental health etc. It is a post Covid world now, as much as many in power wish to deny that. There is a clear before and after, in Education as well as the NHS.

SabrinaThwaite · 09/12/2024 13:05

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 12:52

Of course Bursars are well remunerated, they have to be skilled in accounting, at least, with professional qualifications.

Well yes. In exactly the same way that academy trusts have CFOs, to manage the finances of the school.

After all, I was responding to this comment:

FYI Academies are run as business hence they have CFOs etc at the expense of teaching staff.

There really isn’t any difference in the aims of managing the financial affairs of private schools and academies. Academies are educational charities and don’t have shareholders either.

twistyizzy · 09/12/2024 13:09

Willyoujustbequiet · 09/12/2024 12:45

We have some grammars in the north east but aside from that we have lots of wonderful state schools. Ours has better results than the local private ones. Indeed from reading some of these threads we are far better off than some of the areas you mention.

Show quote history

Whereabouts in the NE? Cos around me that isn't the case!
The NE has yet again come bottom in national table for GCSE results. There are areas of massive deprivation, low unemployment etc

Willyoujustbequiet · 09/12/2024 13:13

twistyizzy · 09/12/2024 13:09

Whereabouts in the NE? Cos around me that isn't the case!
The NE has yet again come bottom in national table for GCSE results. There are areas of massive deprivation, low unemployment etc

Show quote history

Northumberland. Lots of affluent areas tbf.

Smallest class sizes in the country too.

Lookslikemeemaw · 09/12/2024 13:15

‘Brighton College is probably expanding overseas via partnerships so that they can then fund bursaries in the UK?’

No. next?

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 13:26

@Lookslikemeemaw - where is your proof re Brighton College? It’s well known that private schools without endowment funds have to do this to raise charitable funds.

twistyizzy · 09/12/2024 13:42

Willyoujustbequiet · 09/12/2024 13:13

Northumberland. Lots of affluent areas tbf.

Smallest class sizes in the country too.

Show quote history

And Northumberland is the richest area in NE so yes of course state schools are good, they have wealthy intakes.

RhaenysRocks · 09/12/2024 13:53

@Willyoujustbequiet the NE yet again is topping the tables for highest social deprivation, low life expectancy, poor outcomes across the board of course there are pockets of affluence like Northumberland and some good state schools attached but to pretend that's a general trend is disingenuous. Plus, this thread is really focusing on what pastoral support the small Indies can provide that 1000+ comps can't. It's not about results for those of us who use private for unmet SEN needs.

BotanicalGreen · 09/12/2024 14:39

Xenia · 08/12/2024 13:01

(I don't think the litigation will be won, sadly, but I live in hope. I do, however, think it is a pernicious awful measure rushed in without giving people time to prepare. It would also be illegal in the EU.)

Interesting that you think it will lose. Someone actually qualified to take an informed view of it. Most of the other views seem to be based on pure emotion.

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 14:45

Pure emotion? I just do not believe that the Government have legal advice that says they will 100 per cent win this litigation.

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 14:47

You do understand that a human rights lawyer may advise differently than a tax lawyer @BotanicalGreen - right?

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 14:52

Also why would the ISC fund a litigation that is costly without advice that they have a reasonable chance of success? They wouldn’t. The Government on the other hand has endless funds and bad faith. So it is far more likely the ISC is sitting on legal advice stating there is a reasonable chance of success. On purely rationale grounds that is.

BotanicalGreen · 09/12/2024 14:53

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 14:47

You do understand that a human rights lawyer may advise differently than a tax lawyer @BotanicalGreen - right?

Not for me (or you) to disclose Xenia's credentials but I would take her view above most on this thread.

BotanicalGreen · 09/12/2024 15:43

Should caveat that with taking Xenia's legal view above most on this thread. The rest is pretty much batshit. Parents choosing state schools because they are putting their drug habits first? Really?

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 16:01

Unless @Xenia is a human rights lawyer specialising in human rights litigation you should not be taking any “legal” views of hers from a social media site. But each to their own, deference et al. She is not the only lawyer on this thread you know, far from it. But go ahead and keep quoting - she never held herself out as a human rights expert nor is she providing legal advice here. Far from it.

AuntyBumBum · 09/12/2024 16:08

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 14:45

Pure emotion? I just do not believe that the Government have legal advice that says they will 100 per cent win this litigation.

No lawyer would ever guarantee the outcome of litigation. And like anyone rational taking any risk clients will always balance the cost and probability of losing against the benefits and probability of winning. Removing the VAT exemption will cost the schools collectively (and their customers) a huge amount of money. They would be crazy not to pool their resources and mount a legal challenge if there is any chance whatsoever of them winning.

For what it's worth I don't think they will win either I'm afraid for reasons I mentioned way back up the thread - largely the principles of "legitimate aim", margin of appreciation and proportionality, which I think favour the government.

SerendipityJane · 09/12/2024 16:19

AuntyBumBum · 09/12/2024 16:08

No lawyer would ever guarantee the outcome of litigation. And like anyone rational taking any risk clients will always balance the cost and probability of losing against the benefits and probability of winning. Removing the VAT exemption will cost the schools collectively (and their customers) a huge amount of money. They would be crazy not to pool their resources and mount a legal challenge if there is any chance whatsoever of them winning.

For what it's worth I don't think they will win either I'm afraid for reasons I mentioned way back up the thread - largely the principles of "legitimate aim", margin of appreciation and proportionality, which I think favour the government.

Show quote history

If we are playing [human rights] lawyer top trumps. Starmer is no slouch himself. It is unlikely he has forgotten it all for a pair of glasses.

BotanicalGreen · 09/12/2024 16:29

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 16:01

Unless @Xenia is a human rights lawyer specialising in human rights litigation you should not be taking any “legal” views of hers from a social media site. But each to their own, deference et al. She is not the only lawyer on this thread you know, far from it. But go ahead and keep quoting - she never held herself out as a human rights expert nor is she providing legal advice here. Far from it.

Someone is taking things far too seriously. This is starting to sound quite hilariously Kafkaesque. I am allowed to decide on which views I consider credible and which ones I don't. End of. You do you.

BotanicalGreen · 09/12/2024 16:30

SerendipityJane · 09/12/2024 16:19

If we are playing [human rights] lawyer top trumps. Starmer is no slouch himself. It is unlikely he has forgotten it all for a pair of glasses.

Show quote history

Exactly

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 16:42

I cannot see proportionality here. The independent sector is far from uniform - it may look like a multi million business from the outside. However, the whole point is that there are far more smaller and weaker players picking up SEND children than there are elite big players.

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 16:43

“If we are playing [human rights] lawyer top trumps. Starmer is no slouch himself.”

All the worse if he ends up being told off by the courts and ordered to rejig the exemptions. It will be very embarrassing.

SerendipityJane · 09/12/2024 16:45

Araminta1003 · 09/12/2024 16:43

“If we are playing [human rights] lawyer top trumps. Starmer is no slouch himself.”

All the worse if he ends up being told off by the courts and ordered to rejig the exemptions. It will be very embarrassing.

Alternatively, the court case fails and there is no reflection on his grasp of the law.

Politics, maybe.

But the law no.