If labour win the election can they introduce VAT immediately?

[londonparent321]

(For school fees) Or do they need to go through the courts which could take years /never happen?

A bit of a reach @Minymile. Of course I do have sympathy for DC who might have to leave schools. It is those who are in education not the parents. It's selfish parents I struggle with. Try again.

Parents who pay twice for education are hardly selfish.

It’s a shame more can’t pay twice to take the pressure off state schools.

This is a short sited policy that will create wider divisions.

Agree with @pootleq5. Schools cannot claim Gift Aid on fees. Fees are clearly a payment for services, so are not eligible for Gift Aid. Schools that are charities can claim Gift Aid on donations and some other items, but not fees.

Screenshot from HMRC website re: gift aid and schools.

School fees definitely cannot be considered a gift aid-able donation!

If you have been asked to sign a gift aid form, then the school can use it to claim gift aid on any additional voluntary donations that you make throughout the school life of your DC without having to ask you about it again - but they cannot claim gift aid on the fees.

Yes, outraged - state of education broadly, and SEN very specifically is a disgrace. As others have suggested, I would be happy to pay and extra 1% income tax to sort out schools - in our situation that would be pretty similar to what we will likely pay as a household if VAT comes through.

I find the policy so distasteful because it seeks to harm the small corner of education in this country that is doing well, inflicting real harm on the students and teachers who depend on them, and does nothing to tackle the profound problems in the state sector.

my kids will continue to attend their current school, which has been a lifeline for us after being failed by state, but that school will inevitably suffer falling roles and at least some of my children’s classmates will have to leave. Real children hurt, and the state schools will still be as dire as before. I am angry for my school and the classmates who will lose access AND I am angry on behalf of the children being failed in state who desperately need policy change but are served with platitudes and political theatre instead.

'Paying twice' is hardly an altruistic gesture! Aside from quite specific SEN cases, parents have the choice to go with state education. It's up to them if they want to pay elsewhere because they don't consider it fit for purpose. Also, people without any children pay the same taxes as do people with multiple DC, so I think the 'paying twice' assertion is somewhat distorted.

Taking pressure off state schools is not a good enough argument to justify a two-tier education system where privilege is sought to be bought. State schools need to be funded appropriately.

I don't understand how imposing VAT on fees will create wider divisions. That would only be the case if it resulted in a more dominant private sector and we are hypothetically talking about the inverse if DC go to state schools instead. If more parents were to opt for a state provision, surely that would diminish that collective privilege. If your fear is the 'only the very rich will afford private school' trope, why is that only a concern when 'very' replaces 'quite' as has been the case forever?

@TwistyTreeRoots you seem to have thought about this about as deeply as labour - not very.

school inequality (which has waaay more than two tiers and includes some profound inequalities within the state sector) is a reflection of / byproduct of social inequality NOT the cause of it.

No additional voluntary donations here
Just the fees and a gift aid form filled out.
We sent ours to three different private schools for pre-prep, prep and senior. They All did the same

Google what you like if that’s all the intel you have but as others have clearly noted here schools can and do claim it and as mine were all well known schools wouldn’t risk the fall back from doing so illegally. In fact we had access to explanatory info on the parents portal from the schools legal team.

To conclude, along with other MNs here who send their children to private schools so will have direct experience, I’m afraid you are wrong.

I don’t need Google I have the legislation and legal interpretations . You sign a gift aid form as a protective measure so that in case you should make a future donation they already have this completed

@Labraradabrador ,no shit Sherlock, there is variation of education provision within both private and state sectors- Westminster is a different level of privilege from a private predominantly SEN school and Pates Grammar is very different from an inner city sink comp. However, more crucially, there is one tier that you pay for and one that you don't which means that access is not open to all. Aside from extreme SEN, why would people buy education if not to purchase privilege beyond what is available to 80% of the population (93% at primary level)? And so much outrage now the cosy status quo might be rocked a bit.

If you understood even a small part of the history of private education in this country, you would understand how it engrained it is in the collective psyche. It has and still does perpetuate social inequality. Fact. Maybe an extreme example but how else do we end up with a morally bankrupt idiot like Johnson and a misguided prat like Cameron in Downing Street? If it were a true meritocracy, neither of them would have stood a hope in hell. I fundamentally disagree with a private sector. There is no place for it in modern society and the problems within the state sector will never be tackled head on while there is a two tier (yes I said it again) system.

I regret that some children may be displaced by fees rising too sharply but I suspect that many won't move at all. Surely sensible people wouldn't opt for such a large financial commitment if the margins of affordability were so tight.

As a thought and I hope this gives others something to consider too.
Many private schools are willing to wait for fees by putting a charge on your property.
The charge means they get paid when the property is sold.

Worth talking to the schools about if you need a fall back.

@TwistyTreeRoots I don’t disagree with most of what you say but fail to see how this policy will do anything to solve any of those failings .

i have detailed why we went private earlier in the thread but it’s not all one sided , all the local schools said they couldn’t accommodate my son. Our local high achieving state told me that he would be ‘a burden on the school’ and said they would only take him if forced . The council said they would taxi him to a school 45 mins drive away that was in special measures but would accept him. We felt we had no choice. We paid to send him to an independent specialist school.

I donate now so that an another child can have that chance that my son had, and do my best to campaign for better state provision for SEN. By the way my ds is now a taxpayer and not a burden to anyone . Nothing about this policy will help children like my son.

@TwistyTreeRoots there are lots of ways to pay for a better education- buying into catchment, tutoring, extracurriculars - paying school fees is no more or less virtuous, so a funny place for you to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable expression of privilege.

education is important (I wouldn’t be paying for it if I didn’t think so!) but you have outsized understanding of its role as a driver of inequality. Johnson didn’t become PM because of the school he attended, he got there from being born into a wealthy well connected family. Did Eton contribute? Maybe a bit, but without Eton those families would still network, their children would still have access to opportunities others don’t, and they would always have a giant safety net that would allow them to take risks and pursue high stakes career paths.

I don’t have words for the absurd assertion you make that somehow state would improve if we got rid of private schools entirely. They wouldn’t, but I guess if you had nothing to compare it to state might look better?

@TwistyTreeRoots but state sector schools are subject to privilege also ie parents who can afford to buy houses in the best catchment areas etc. This then prices out poorer parents.
As a PP says, privilege often comes from family connections rather than the school. Wealthy parents will always have better connections, whether their DC go to state or private schools.
It is far too simplistic to say state schools would improve if private schools were abolished. Unless state schools are properly funded they will never improve, irrespective of whether the private sector is there or not. Abolishing private schools won't = investment in state schools. Just as VAT on fees won't dramatically improve state schools. The overall impact on state schools will be negligible but be dramatic for many private school DC especially those with SEN.
So to bring some parents down by punishing their DC.

@Prunesqualler did you mean to sound so rude!

I have 2 children at a private school. I am a chartered accountant currently working for an educational charity and so am reasonably well versed in gift aid legislation It wasn't a random google search as you seem to imply, it was on the HMRC website - are you suggesting that their official published guidance is incorrect?

As @pootleq5 said, the gift aid form should merely be in case you make any voluntary donations at any point, so that they can go ahead and reclaim gift aid without having to ask you to make a declaration every time.

However, I am willing to concede that HMRC's website is completely wrong, because you say so, and so perhaps you could post a screenshot of the explanatory information from your school's legal team. Then I can pass it onto my DC's school and maybe save them some money.

Also, most ‘modern’ societies, even those with really strong state provision, have a vibrant private sector as well because diversity of provision is needed. In other countries there isn’t this emotional baggage around class and school that seems to weigh down the debate in the uk. I am not British, and am frequently baffled by how emotive this issue is here. Even in more socialist leaning EU countries there is a general acceptance that all education should be tax exempt.

Gift aid only applies to voluntary donations, not to school fees or for the payment of other goods/services. HMRC’s own website states this clearly. None of the private schools I’ve had experience of have ever asked for a gift aid form as standard.

No school should be claiming gift aid on compulsory fees. Higher rate tax payers can claim additional tax relief on any gift aid payments. Are parents claiming this? It’s also worth noting that taxpayers need to be careful to ensure that they have paid enough tax in any given year to cover the tax relief the charity is claiming. If not, the taxpayer is likely to end up with a tax liability.

@pootleq5 I totally sympathise with your specific situation. That's why I caveated what I said with 'Aside from SEN'.

I am not British, and am frequently baffled by how emotive this issue is here.

@Labraradabrador you sound extremely emotional for someone who is baffled by emotion around the topic.

Maybe your non-Britishness is a block to your understanding of the history of how the private sector has blatantly purchased educational and societal privilege for a very long time. Look at Oxbridge stats historically and how a handful of independent schools have dominated. Thankfully there is a swing back now with WP but when I was at Oxford it was very different indeed. You are incredibly naive if you believe that Eton/Oxbridge/(Bulligdon?) combo haven't played a big part in political networking - 20 British prime ministers have attended Eton. Same in Investment Banking, City Law etc. and I know first hand as I work (successfully so no bitterness there) in one of those sectors. There is no place for this type purchased privilege in the modern world.

I don't think there is an overnight solution and this VAT introduction seems a bit silly but that doesn't mean that change isn't needed. I understand that a local bumpkin sleepy private school is a million miles from Eton, St Paul's and Westminster but a two-tier system is just not conducive to everyone being behind a good state sector for all. While there is an opt out, that will never happen.

And finally just to be clear on what is acceptable purchased privilege. (State/grammar school)tutoring is another trope that is banded around but the reality is that the private sector spends significantly more on top up tutoring than the state does. Belts and braces and all that.

How is media and journalism a 'high stakes' career path. It's a self perpetuating cycle, how can the media challenge the establishment (isn't that all PMs to date), if they are the establishment? It is disingenuous to say that the 'private' aspect of schooling has nothing to do with this is in the UK, it may be different in the EU but historically those links exist in the UK.

This.

Media and journalism tend to rely on unpaid/ low paid internships as well as network connections to gain critical expertise for career advancement, making it a more difficult prospect for someone without financial backing and connections to gain a foothold. Again, there are usually family connections that precede any school links, the same family connections probably also driving school selection. Causation vs correlation and all that.

and yes, it is a huge problem, but one that is incumbent on the industry to address via hiring and promotion practices. You can’t really fairly place blame at the door of private schools more broadly - if they disappeared tomorrow you wouldn’t see any difference in the sort of people being hired and promoted

This is such a spot on post 👏👏👏

@TwistyTreeRoots sorry but don’t see the logic behind punishing a whole sector because 50, 100, 200 years ago a small number of its members had a societal role that we no longer find desirable. Society has evolved and so have the schools - we should formulate policy looking forward not backward.

really and truly the vast majority of the private education sector is first and foremost about providing education. At the vast majority of private schools there are no connections to be bought, the ‘only’ advantage you get is a superb well-rounded education.

I can imagine many parents will do similar.
No need to work so hard to pay fees just save the money instead and pay for tutoring.
This will have a knock on effect with parents earning less and paying less tax than currently and so it goes on and on resulting in a net financial loss to society.
You are not the first person that has mentioned this PP …..

@TwistyTreeRoots You come across so intelligent and understanding of the topic. I find it brilliant. I do find it funny reading the outrage side, whilst seeing the lack of acceptance of your side. thank you so much for your posts ☺️

I do find it laughable anyone quoting “what about those of us who sacrifice so much to send our children to private school?!” Well, darling, you’re missing the point that Joe Bloggs on the average 30k-ish salary can make all the sacrifices in the world, and still couldn’t send one child to private. Don’t be so entitled.