to think private schools having charitable status is taking the piss

[zanz1bar]

Most private schools have their charitable status as an accident of history. Does a school like Eton really deserve the same financial status as the NSPCC.

Can it really be justified by a few subsidized places.

Which begs another question, I believe it's £2400 per child per year that the schools are entitled to claim, so what happens to that money if the child doesn't attend the local state school, do they get the cash to put towards the other 29 children, do they heck.

"Your tax money goes to paying for single parents to not work."

Really? Do no single parents work? As opposed to parents still together, or childless people? What a terrible waste of money - why on earth should kids need to see much of their mother after a nasty parental split, especially when excellent childcare is so affordable and easily available.

Still, I don't entirely blame you. Must be hard to be charitable when you can't even spell the word.

"State schools are full of teachers who are paid by the state because frankly they couldn't cut it any other walk of life IME."

This has to be the most offensive bullshit statement I've seen on MN in a very, very long time.

"Yet I still pay council tax which helps pay for your child's free state school place."

No you don't. You pay council tax for a whole variety of services many of which you benefit from. And it isn't 'free' since you and others including the parents of the said child also pay it. It isn't charity. That's the point.

And state education is for the benefit of all. If there was no 'free' education would you really want to live in the society that resulted?

well I know lots of very very bright people, with intelligent children, who, as well as being clever enough to work out that boden isn't a priority, have also sent their children to state school - because they have worked out that it's good for their kids, good for society, and that they have got enough nouse to make up for shortfalls at home. I went to Oxford and of all my friends there I can think of one family that's sent their kids to private school. one.

there's an awful lot of superiority going on in this thread. am particularly loving the idea that sacrifice is all about forking out money to get the best for your kids. and that an ideological approach to the issue entails class hatred.

"All kids should have the same basic education as my kids get - but for free. For some reason, it is not possible for the UK state to provide this."

Yes, they should. But, in the mean time, that is not what's on offer. So, if you don't like what's on offer free, you pay for the alternative. That's a choice you make. It is made possible by your higher-than-average earnings and it is driven by a (laudable and reasonable) desire for your children to have an advantage.

Now please explain to me why taxpayers who do not, or indeed cannot, make those choices, should subsidise you to do so by giving you indirect tax breaks?

the poor have always enabled the rich.

close all private and independant and religous schools - have one state sector education - and watch it change- what the people with influence change it.

Being charities does not mean private schools get any cash from the state. But as charities they can claim gift aid and also VAT exemption.
So really it is about whether the government should collect loads of extra tax from the parents, who also already contribute via their taxes to their local state schoool.

This means private school fees would go up massively and they really would be very very elitist then, but there still would be people who would pay...but again we'd be back in the realms of the super rich only.

At least our local private school does bursaries, if DD passed their entrance exam she would have to have a bursary.
I have a friend and she and her DH are both unemployed and they have 2 children in private schools each with massive bursaries. One is a sports bursary and the other is a chorister scholarship. Even the best local state school could not provide these opportunities for them.

If you abolished private schools tomorrow someone would re-invent them as they do a serve a need, no matter how offensive some people find it.

"And all those working mums, like me, who only work to afford school fees, will give up and stop paying taxes (except for the VAT on their lunches with the ladies)."

But your jobs will be filled by someone else who, presumably, will then pay the tax.

I don't want to abolish private schools, but do you really think GIFT-AID is appropriate.

Orm - the council tax DOES help pay for local state school education. I never said it ONLY pays for education. We all pay the same amount (depending on banding of property) yet if I pay for private schools I do not get all the benefits from it that you do if your child is state educated. So, though state education IS funded by us all, not all of us benefit financially from it.

My post was answering the OP who was objecting to private schools getting tax breaks. I was answering that, in fact, in terms of tax revenue the state is much better off giving me limited indirect tax breaks by giving independent schools charitable status than having to shell out the cost of a state school place. This is not yet another tax handout to the rich!

That is the point.

It is simple financial sense.

The ideological aspects are a whole other discussion.

That is the point.

Miggsie

"This means private school fees would go up massively and they really would be very very elitist then, but there still would be people who would pay...but again we'd be back in the realms of the super rich only."

So what? They're already elitist. They are provately-funded businesses and how they position themselves in the market is entirely up to them.

It only becomes everyone else's concern when they start getting tax breaks.

I live very near to this school.

Children take an entrance exam and fees are on a sliding scale you pay what you can afford. There is a high percentage of inner city children and ethnic minorities at this school.

They provide a fantastic education and experience for their students. They rightly have charitable status. Without it they couldn't continue. YABU not all private schools are full of toffs in their 4x4's

Custardo - close all the private schools and watch your tax bill rocket!

I thought this thread was about the economics of the issue but it has just turned into another rant about the evils of private education.

Been done to death. Boring.

YorkshireRose

It is not "simple financial sense" - schooling is not provided on a place-by-place basis but is planned a decade in advance on the basis of estimates. Your child's place was paid for long before you decided not to use it.

AppleandMosesMummy, you sound like my grandmother. She told me a few weeks ago that people don't send their kids to private school because they "aren't willing to make the sacrifices", and that she never had holidays or new clothes so she could send my mother and uncle. Firstly, she's full of it, because they were on army places. Secondly, she couldn't seem to get her head around the fact that half of this country earn less than £30k a year, and after tax, that's less than a good boarding school's annual fees. How the hell can a family spend more than they earn on one child's education? Frankly anyone suggesting such a thing must have truly appalling maths. I do hope their own parents didn't pay for it.

Nobody is saying that private education should be banned. They're saying that the charitable status is deeply suspect on principle, because the educational benefits are only available to the very wealthiest in the country - so why should they have tax breaks to service their ensuring inherited privilege for their children? It's that aspect that sticks in people's gullets. It's also wholly disingenuous to claim the only advantage is VAT exemption on fees. Donations (towards a new science lab, for example), are eligible for the gift-in-aid scheme, so the school can claim the donor's income tax back from the state for the amount on question, just as if the donation was for cancer research, or Oxfam. And in some private schools, that amounts to a very, very large claw-back indeed.

"State schools are full of teachers who are paid by the state because frankly they couldn't cut it any other walk of life IME."

That's entertaining, given a PGCE is actually quite competitive, and the state system requires one - the private doesn't. There's a supposedly excellent private school near here that employed a 21 year old, straight out of university, to teach Latin. What did she know about lesson planning, learning styles or teaching skills? Nothing. She cheerfully admitted as much to us - she was our contemporary at university, you see. And have you ever heard of Teach First?

No it wasn't MIFLAW. The council made its plans based on estimates of how many places would be required. And those calculations include estimates of how many local children will be privately educated and so would not need to be paid for by the council.

Believe me, my local council cannot find places for all the local children curently applying for places. If all the children who are educated privately here were to suddenly opt into the state sector the system would collapse.

Lostinparenthood - most private schools operate on that basis, pretty everyone I have ever come across, now if people aren't looking around them, putting their child in for the entrance exams and asking the questions then they are missing out but it's nobody's fault but their own.

YorkshireRose - "though state education IS funded by us all, not all of us benefit financially from it."

I think you'll find we all pay for services via taxation that we don't use ourselves.

For example, DH's uncle has just died aged 61. He worked all his life and will have paid thousands in taxes. He never had children, never spent any time in hospital, never claimed benefit and now will never get a state pension or require NHS care as he grows older.

There are a million and one examples like this.

I am not a teacher, I work on the administration of schools and see the applicants we get from state school teachers with their PGCE's and I'm sure they are well qualified in what the state wants them to teach. In terms of the qualities we look for they do not stand a chance, because it's about more than getting the child through the exams.
Oh and asking about sickness policy as they head into the interview didn't do any favors either.

yorkshirerose you do benefit financially by educating all children with your taxes.
An educated population pay taxes to clean your roads, train your doctors, pay your pension FFS!

Qally - the charitable status is offered because it costs the revenue less than paying for state education for those children whose parents whose income is at such a level that they would not be able to afford the fees if they went up due to loss of the school's tax status.

It is simple hard headed economics. The government never GIVES anything away!

ZANZ - read my last post.

Its all about cash.

Interesting AppleandMosesMummy, I worked in a private school with where the kitchen staff were, without exception, more qualified than the teaching staff.

The charitable status is 'offered' by a continued accident of history. It is used now for bursaries etc.