vat on fees- can we have another thread with numbers/type of school ONLY?

[dietcokewithice]

I think it would be very useful for many of us to know what other schools are planning, but it's difficult pull this info out from the other thread as it became full of debate!

Be great if people could just post along these lines - eg

'15 percent rise from Jan '25 - London girls private'

'8 percent rise from September '24, rising to 12 percent in January '25 - North East boys private' - or whatever.

Our school (London co-ed) is raising fees by 4 percent in September. No info yet on what they will do from January '25!

thanks

My sister has two sons there, paid for under an expat package. She said that, until recently, there was no confirmation of the increase, so not sure about any u-turn.

For context my DC go to an international school in Surrey, and they have advised 12% re VAT, plus the usual annual review.

Ours is a coed day school in the NW.
We have 0% increase this year but as of January they are passing on the full 20%.
The school have communicated that any VAT refund they obtain from historic building projects etc will go directly into the bursary fund and they have promised that any child currently in GCSE/A-level years will not have to interrupt their education due to the price increases.

Those price hikes are astronomical. Is it really worth it? If you call used state schools and put efforts into that sector then everyone benefits.

What is the gain from paying so much?

I would be up in arms about this. Many parents are struggling to pay the 20% increase (not all obviously), and should benefit from any VAT rebate from building projects etc in lower base fees. I wouldn’t want effectively MORE of my hard earned cash being redistributed to other families, when I am struggling too.

The price hikes are due to Labour's VAT policy! Many deciding it isn't worth it and trying to move to state but 1000s still don't know if they have a place next week because Labour cynically announced this over summer when many schools + LAs had OOO on.
This thread is for parents with kids at private schools, no need to comment about using state unless you are a parent with kids currently in private but considering a move to state.
Incidentally to answer your Q people pay for the following reasons:

• SEN who needs can't be met in state
• military
• kids on bursaries and scholarships
• because local state schools are poor

The reasons have been done to death pm other threads and this thread isn't about debating the merits of private school.

@giraffeski - presume you mean those entering years 10, 11, 12, or 13? Or just those entering years 11 and 13 (ie final exam years).

Reclaiming VAT from building costs and ploughing it into new bursaries, as oppose to using it to support existing families, doesn’t seem right at all, given existing families fees funded building costs in the first place!

and on the note of schools recouping VAT from historic expenditure, anyone know how straightforward that is?

I think it applies only to those in exam years but if I'm honest I didn't check because both mine are in the prep (one going up to seniors this year).

I'm not always on top of all the communication from the School so might have missed it, but I don't remember any previous suggestions like that.

7% in September and they announced VAT of 16%.

We are at a natural break point and so have moved to state.

We were at nothing leftover spare and aren't going to get into debt for school fees.

Kids are very upset to leave their friends and sports teams but I can't magically earn another 9k a year to cover the VAT

My kids both have significant send and are on a two year waitlist for EHCP's

London co-ed. 7% increase for 2024-25 fees. The VAT increase for January will be confirmed at the end of October (presumably because they need to get the full details from the legislation), but we've been told to plan for a conservative estimate of 14% increase.

Non selective co-ed secondary in SE England have indicated they will need to pass on the whole cost to parents, so we're expecting a nearly 20% increase from January.

We have had a 15% base fee increase for September (as per comms at Easter) then a 3% increase on that fee for the last two terms of the year ie the base fee will go down in those terms to cover most of the VAT. So overall our fee this year will be just under 18% higher than our fee last year, including VAT and annual increase (that increase would normally be 5-10%)

Girls secondary SE England already 7% from September and still waiting for update promised for “end of summer” on the net January VAT hike. Not impressed by the delay on getting clarity. Even less impressed by the trolls on here who think it is funny to pretend this thread is about anything other then private school VAT hikes. Will update with data asap.

It's great to see the government making scrounging private schools pay their fair share of tax. For too long have these benefit scrounging / tax dodging institutions been stealing tax payers hard earned money by avoiding paying VAT.

I'm surprised they are not all following Eton and rising prices by 20%? If they are not doing this, then they are making cuts to quality elsewhere by absorbing the loss?? I would be very concerned about this if I was a parent as you are essentially paying more money for worsening quality, which seems rather silly indeed!

I was privately educated in an era when these schools added value in the higher education and professional working spheres..

Unfortunately for the current generation, those days are long gone.

Yawn.

Troll hunting is an offence on Mumsnet and breaks talk guidelines.

I think you know full well this poster meant folks who were trolling this particular thread, rather than trolls in a troll hunting sense.

You seem very angry. And you don't seem to understand how VAT works.

VAT on school fees is not a tax on the schools. The "scrounging schools" will not be paying the VAT, the parents will be paying it.

In fact, from a VAT reclaim point of view, independent schools will now be treated the same as state school. Up until now, indie schools have been unable to reclaim any of their input VAT, whereas state schools (despite also making exempt supplies) have been able to through a special arrangement with HMRC. Which seems somewhat unfair towards private schools, you might say.

So at least that will now be fairer towards private schools.

As regards some schools not raising the amount payable by parents by the full 20%, this is generally being achieved by the savings that schools will make by being able to reclaim their input VAT, both on supplies going forward and on historic capital projects going back a number of years.

can we have another thread with numbers/type of school ONLY?

Clearly not 😄

My daughter's school hasn't told us what's happening yet. Other schools in my area have pledged to freeze fees for 2 years.

@SmallBoatEnthusiast

did your PS help you to succeed professionally?

do you educate your kids privately?

140k one income equates to just under £7k.
We have one child in private, central London.
Fees come to around 2k a month, mortgage costs £1.6k, car 0.4k a month.
3k for bills, food etc...just about ok.
So I think it all depends on your housing costs.

Exactly yawn.

Go on the thread about how people are pretending to be church goers in order to get their Dcs into a church school with people saying that's fine. Plus others saying they have moved houses or rented houses in good catchment areas.

Paying for school is alot more honest than that.