Vat Question????????

[Anoth]

Can I ask a silly question??
We have been given our school fees for 24/25 academic year now for the school my daughter attends.
My question is if labours policy comes in half way through an academic year will the schools be allowed to put the fees up for the remainder of that academic year? Eg if we start paying X amount on September and then labour get in and introduce the added vat in October. Will the fees go up in Jan of that academic year? Normally fees remain un changed for the whole of the academic year once fees have been published but I understand this is a strange situation!
Just wanted to know if I need to prepare to save more for 24/25 fees just in case or will these that are now published still remain until the end of July 25??.
Thanks!

Lots of children will swap at natural transition points, taking places at the better state schools. Still, at least those who would have otherwise have got a place at 11 at the good schools (had it not been for more pupils now wanting those spaces) will find space at the less popular ones.

Also, not all private school children travel miles every day.

Private Education Policy Forum recording

https://www.pepf.co.uk/events/labours-private-school-tax-plan-the-numbers/

IFS have a lot of questions to answer. This panel allowed them to swerve.

I watched it @MisterChips - well done!

Can’t believe the EDSK guy had to confirm he has not been paid by private schools to do his research! This policy does not stack up in any shape or form.

The IFS guy advocating for VAT on everything …. Hmmm, interesting to say the least!

‘Can’t believe the EDSK guy had to confirm he has not been paid by private schools to do his research!’

All research has a bias. It’s just a matter of how much, why and how much weight to give to it.

And yet the Labour Party are basing their figures solely on the IFS report.

So @Quatty - you are not one bit concerned by Luke Sibieta’s statement that it would be easier if VAT was simplified and all goods and services (no exceptions) would be VATable? (Subject only I assume to the VAT threshold).

So private healthcare, uni fees, kids clothes etc etc, tampons. All those MN threads don’t seem to be such a joke anymore.

This policy is sheer madness and really difficult to implement with no unintended consequences.

If Labour continue to cleave to IFS (a report which has had holes picked it in now) then the natural progression is to apply VAT to everything. Once you open the doors to taxing education then it becomes harder to justify not taxing everything else.
Categorising any form of education as a luxury is a slippery and dangerous slope.

The IFS is not a monolith. Here is a debate between a number of relevant parties, including an economist from the IFS.
https://www.tax.org.uk/ciot-ifs-debate-should-vat-be-charged-on-private-school-fees

The economist from the IFS doesn’t take an overt position on either side of the debate, but he is clear that there are important reasons to consider why VAT on private schools to be problematic. He is far more cautious and less optimistic than Luke Sibieta

‘Luke Sibieta’s statement that it would be easier if VAT was simplified and all goods’

Nope, because that’s not happening. Next.

Where does your envy of private schools emanate from?

Now perhaps you could look up (1) which body funds the IFS work on private education (2) what is the historical output of that body on education....to what extent has it shown interest in quality, innovation, choice, safeguarding or the role of education in the wider economy vs simply "equality" narrowly defined (3) what is the overlap of that body with the Private Education Policy Forum (4) what in turn is the ideology of the PEPF and its governing body.

I know the answers to all the above but I'm glad for you @Quatty please to do some actual work on this topic of mutual interest. Thanks. Then we can discuss whether it’s reasonable that the Labour Party considers the IFS "independent" let alone unbiased.

What? This is outrageous!

They’re businesses. you’re customers. They can do what they like. And you can vote with your feet.

“They’re businesses. you’re customers. They can do what they like. And you can vote with your feet.”

And here we have the next BIG LIE. Private schools are not businesses, they educate CHILDREN and are overseen by the DFE. Same laws and regulations apply to them as state schools. They are just funded differently. By the parents. That does not make them businesses.
In fact, many private nurseries and care homes are far more like businesses than private schools. Private schools that are charities do not even have shareholders, they cannot even keep a profit. Plenty of care homes and SEN schools and nurseries, by contrast, are run for profit.

So will they be taxed too? Obviously they should not be. Health and Education should not be taxed, ever, as a matter of principle.

They’re businesses. you’re customers. They can do what they like

They’re not businesses. Some of them are charities and are not profit making.

Why would a private school be a “business” any more than a state school? They both receive funding, merely from different sources.

Unlike many private schools, private nurseries, private hospitals and private care homes actually are businesses and are run for profit. Why should we not add VAT to those fees?

I'm confused. Why is this outrageous?

If the government impose VAT, then the schools will have to charge it. I'm not sure what's contentious about that or what you'd expect the school to do differently.

Presumably, they're just making sure everyone knows that this is happening.

‘They’re not businesses. Some of them are charities and are not profit making.’

They are charging large amounts of money for something that is considered to be a free right for children in most of the modern world. They are businesses.
Don’t even get me started on the ‘charity’ status that many claim - that should be the first thing to go, even before VAT is added to the fees.

If you’re not happy with the prices that a business is charging for a service? Then don’t pay it. Either change providers and pay someone else for that service, or use the free schools that the majority of the country use.

You know who you should be blaming? The Tories.
They’re the ones who have fecked the economy so that everything is now more expensive - fees are already going up hugely year on year..
They have also created such division - these wealthy, privileged, corrupt, immoral, tax dodging, PRIVATELY educated, self interested rulers- that ordinary people who perhaps wouldn’t have given a toss about VAT free fees now just see it as another tax dodge by slippery elitists.
Blame the Tories. You know, the ones most of you voted in.

MATs are businesses too. Private nurseries are businesses, should we tax them too?

or use the free schools that the majority of the country use

The same argument can be used for private healthcare.

In any case, state education is not “free”. It’s funded by the taxpayer. It’s precisely why there are so many problems in the state system - too many people don’t value it because they view it as “free”.

Who voted Tory? I certainly didn't but I sure as hell won't be voting Labour in to make independent schools the enclaves that they caricature and will utlimately widen the divide.

You do remember that Labour left the economy in the deepest recession in 70 years? And that the cost of living crisis is a worldwide issue? And that many Labour MPs were privately educated and privately educated their own children?

Is this the only proposed Labour policy the Tories should take credit for?

Blame the Tories. You know, the ones most of you voted in.

You have absolutely no idea how any of us voted. There are plenty of Labour/Lib Dem voters using private school.

They’re the ones who have fecked the economy so that everything is now more expensive

The problem with inflation hasn’t solely been a UK issue. Have a look at the Eurozone and US inflation figures. A lot of people seem to forget that there is a world beyond the UK.

Imposing VAT on school fees will only increase the division you’ve mentioned. The ultra wealthy won’t care. It hits the lower earning families and cheaper schools disproportionately. Private education will become even more elitist.