20% vat on fees

[namechangedforthisone35]

IF Labour get in and IF the 20% does get added to fees, how many private school pupils will be moved to state? I have three kids (one not school aged yet) and in private school. One of many reasons because I didn't want them in a class of 30. I couldn't afford the vat increase so would have to move them but then that class of 30 becomes, what, 40?! In an already strained and unresourced system?!

Wwyd?

Y - I'd have to move kids to state
N - I'll pay the vat

@Whazzabanger ffs when will you accept that charitable status and VAT are 2 completely 2 different and separate issues. Labour are NOT going to get rid of charitable status for private schools, Starmer has already confirmed this. It is only you who is still obsessed with it.
LMAO that you are a pleb, you are one of the elite that you seemingly despise so much

How they exclude themselves as somehow apart from the ‘elite’ they despise god knows

@twistyizzy I think it's safe to say that the claim @Whazzabanger made about earning £200k per year or something was - like the rest of their posts - total bullshit.

If your local retiree is making £85,000, meaning they're eligible for VAT, they can probably afford it.

If the Government actually cracked down on all the black money in the economy and tax fraud we could probably have the shiniest state schools in town.

To be fair, the initially announced plan was to do remove charitable status from private schools AND bring education under VAT.

The charitable status aspect was dropped almost immediately as no one had come up with a plan for the assets of the no-longer-charities, which by law have to be shared with other similar charities (who would all also no longer be charities).

A decade spent on this gem and never once had they delved into the details.

The VAT plan will come to nothing too - it’s all bluster that sounds good to the faithful but will not deliver anything like the headline sums, and when the fall out in terms of small school closures, the misery for the kids who have to move school, likely a disproportionate no of whom with SEN, etc, the parents who can no longer afford tutors for kids not getting teacher attention in the state sector, it’ll probably cost money.

But hey, the SJWs in their million pound houses in tiny catchments for outstanding schools have socked it to what they call the elite…

Happy to be told I’m wrong but service is VATable at the point of supply. Whether the retired teacher can reclaim VAT on her expenses is another matter.

@Cantquitebelievewhatitscometo

A sole trader wouldn't have to register for VAT until turnover reaches £85,000. As tutoring is not heavy on expenses, supplies and resources, that would most likely be mainly earnings. Income tax and/or business taxes would quite rightly be due if earnings were above the relevant thresholds. Same goes for the Sunday School example. Nothing like a good bit of scaremongering is there? It's the Tory's usual tactic when they've lost the argument.

But hey, the SJWs in their million pound houses in tiny catchments for outstanding schools have socked it to what they call the elite…

Well Jeremy Corbyn literally divorced due to his son going to a grammar school in London. The overemphasis on type of schooling in this country is ridiculous. Privilege is determined by so much more than schooling. If your parents are doctors or lawyers you are more likely to go that way regardless of what school you attend. Backed up by research.
We need to move away from this type of simplistic thinking around schools and how they are funded.

That’s fair enough. Happy to be corrected. It will hit the tutoring chains, and the bigger franchises. So the upside is that it will generate a gap in the market for accountants and restructurers for mid size education suppliers. Smaller ones will continue as is.

How do you feel that Labour, the party of workers, is seeking to make the UK one of the only countries in the world that legally considers education a luxury?

@Cantquitebelievewhatitscometo

How do I feel about your fanciful description of policies that haven't been described or implemented yet?

I've conducted educational research visits to countries where private education is either illegal, prevented from delivering public/national qualifications or is taxed to make them very definitely a luxury. Each one of them had a well-funded, respected education system with high academic, vocational and behavioural standards. Oh, and, by our standards, extraordinarily high levels of social equity. I'm therefore quite content with proposals that may, just may increase the status of state education in the UK. Saying that, it's been systematically attacked and savaged since 2010 so it's a long shot.

I’d be interested in reading about this. Which countries have made private schools illegal?

‘If the Government actually cracked down on all the black money in the economy and tax fraud ‘

THIS government? Aren’t they the cause of most of it? Them and their mates?

They certainly know how to use a loop hole or two, whether it’s in private schools or elsewhere.

This. The estimated benefit fraud is around £7bn - multiples of the amount that would be raised from taxing schools.

We won’t agree on this. I think everyone wants to see better, more effective state education, which will only be possible with more and better paid teachers and effective support from families who are committed to supporting their children’s education.

That all requires massive funding and Labour’s big fat plan, a decade in the making, is going to raise the square root of nothing meaningful, will cause huge upheaval for some and will open the door to VAT on university fees.

It’s a massive shame that the glee about stitching up a few families (nowhere near all) who have children in the private sector makes them blind to entirely foreseeable repercussions.

‘The estimated benefit fraud is around £7bn - multiples of the amount that would be raised from taxing schools.’

ooh, let’s do both. It’s not ‘taxing schools’ anyway, it’s taking away fake tax charity status from businesses that will have financial implications for those businesses.

@Another76543

At the time of my visit, private schools were illegal in Norway. When I visited Sweden and Finland, it was illegal to charge fees for education although some proto-academy type organisations did deliver state education - I believe Sweden is considering backtracking on this.

How are you still misguided on this

Is that a nursery or primary? the secondary schools it know are all 30k+ all the activities,uniform, etc.

@Hobbi this is frequently raised by anti-private school advocates, but 1)none of these countries have actually eliminated private education. Even in Finland there are still private options, and 2) these countries had excellent state education before implementing any anti-private legislation. Their schools weren’t improved by pressure on private, and it is daft to think squeezing uk private schools will have any positive impact on state schools. I suspect that it is easier to implement this type of legislation when you have good state schools, as why would anyone pay for education twice if they didn’t feel like they needed to.

the uk education system is in dire need of investment, as well as a good rethink to make it fit for purpose in our current world, but vat on privates isn’t going to do either. Undermining better performing private schools does make things more equal, but it does not make it better.

we talk about funding crisis across many elements of uk society, but taxation is not the way to solve that - the tax burden is already comparatively high. The only way we are going to fix schools, nhs, etc. I’d through growth, but unfortunately I don’t think either party has much of a plan for achieving that.

Norway. Private schools allowed and the majority are subsidised by the state.
https://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-education-systems/norway/organisation-private-education

Finland. Private schools allowed. They are not allowed to profit from the basic element of education, but they receive state funding.
https://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-education-systems/finland/organisation-private-education

Sweden. Independent schools generally don’t charge fees but receive state funding. Fee charging schools do exist, albeit in smaller numbers, and tend to be international schools.
https://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-education-systems/sweden/organisation-private-education

These countries actually support the private system with state funding. They don’t penalise them. Which other countries have made private schools illegal?

@Labraradabrador

I didn't suggest banning private schools would necessarily improve state schools. I merely commented on the poster who said the uk would become the only country to class education as a luxury. There are no private options in Finland that can deliver state sanctioned qualifications. In the course of my research it was very evident that Sweden and Finland consider effective education as a result of social equity not a cause thereof. This makes the whole obsession with trying to recreate public schools (with super strict uniform policies, aggressive behaviour policies and under qualified teachers) managed by academy chains on sink estates, a massive category error.

@Another76543

You haven't said anything different to what I did. And I did mention Norway at the time of my visit - I'm quite old. If you're going to say that private organisations delivering education using state funding is the same as our version of private schools, then most of our secondary sector is de facto private.

The mask slips.

Are you referring to the Michaela school by any chance?

Could you explain why this state funded yet top performing school is not the right sort of success?