Why are private school parents punished when they remove a financial burden from the taxpayer?

[FishPhoods]

My DC do not go to private school, if I could afford it I would.

However - this policy makes no sense to me. I'm a TA. The school I work in has huge class sizes and is overstretched.

Starmer is saying that the VAT he proposes to add to private school fees will be channelled into the state education system. However we use the facilities of the local private school (swimming pool, sports fields) two days per week for no charge. If they lose their charitable status we lose access to that.

Also any money gained from VAT will potentially be outweighed by more pupils joining from the local private - or pupils who would have potentially gone but now won't. It costs the taxpayer roughly £8k per year to educate a child in the state system - we won't gain anything like that from VAT to cover the "new" pupils we acquire from the private system.

The way I see it if the rich can afford to or choose to pay for their children's education it's one less burden on the taxpayer. And making schools more expensive just makes them more elitist surely? Financially I just don't see how this makes any sense - is it just a populist thing as people generally feel aggrieved that some have the option of private education when some don't, so it's a way to punish them?

@Thisagainandagain state Academy Trusts set up trading companies for any of their non charitable income and then donate it back to the Trust so don’t have to pay tax on it. These are state schools.

In fact this is common for many larger charities. Universities will do it too.

Yes - the grammar system actually work work if it was used in this way and vocational pathways were robust and valued properly.

I really think that people are getting tired of these half arsed accusations. Argue the point or leave the thread - troll hunting is frowned upon.

It doesn't work and to be honest you don't seem to understand it from your posts.

It is purely driven by wealthy parents who don't want to pay for private - has never and will never help social mobility because it skews in favour of wealth.

Parents using it create sink schools in their areas with huge divides between rich and poor areas. We do NOT want more of these areas where student who don't get in at 11 are treated like second class citizens because they are competing with thousands of pounds of private tutoring. Pretending these kids are "naturally bright" when you're actually training them is sickening and creates a bunch of parents and children who think they are special.

It creates social problems and inflates egos of people who like to pretend wealth isn't their main aide.

Yes it’s the same posters using these accusations

The VAT policy will increase this

But the ratios of teachers to pupils is much lower so more teachers will be available and also in the same area as the closed private schools.
OP if I were in your position I would argue more that years or the conservatives failing to invest in schools is the problem affecting 95% of children not this issue. It I feel you have another agenda.

That's really interesting I know 2 teachers who went the other way as they found the parents more difficult at the private school (more pushy) they did move to, separate, decent state schools though which might have influenced it.

VAT was a tax created to be put on luxury items. Private education is a luxury, and should never have been given charitable status.

It's just righting something that's been wrong for a very long time.

At this point I'm not sure that the policy has to work for it to be implemented. Like austerity, which will cost society far more in the long run, it just has to have the flavour of being workable. And be popular, of course.

Yes I have only been in education for 20 odd years - what would I know? I am an ex-grammar school girl who married an ex-grammar school boy - both working class kids who worked our socks off. We are not the only ones.

Parents are much more involved (on the whole) and want their kids to succeed - I welcome this frankly and work with parents pretty closely. I do not consider them 'pushy'.

There are some great state schools and we should be aiming to have all state education at that level rather than dragging down private schools.

Because Labour need to appeal to the Left and they think a little social engineering won’t hurt.

It’s uravnilovka tailored to the British public.

Why can't we do the same for Grammar schools while we are at it? Why is one luxury school penalised and not the one directly taking from the state?

Are piano, drama and ballet lessons not a luxury?

i don’t see those being slapped with a VAT.

What is your source for saying that VAT is a tax for luxury goods? I see this over and over, but is it actually true?

Spot on.

Do these music/sport/dance/ art teachers, coaches etc not pay tax as self employed or as business?

My kids are state educated, but all being well they'll have a decent inheritance. When I look at some private school kids, and how their lives have turned out, I think their parents were scammed...

I agree wholeheartedly with you, it saves the state a shed load of money, and Vat shouldn't be added.

With this whole privilege thing - you can't make us equal. Some kids are born with good health, some aren't, some are blessed with good lucks, some aren't, some are sporty, some aren't, some are naturally very clever, some aren't, some are musical, some aren't. Some have the advantage of a loving supportive family, sadly some don't..

Many PP's stating private schools are businesses. In the main, they are not. They don't make profit. As educational establishments, all profits go back into the school.

VAT stands for Value Added Tax. The idea when it came in was that at every stage a product was made value was added and a percentage of that would end up being skimmed off towards public spending. It was never meant as a tax on luxuries, but goods and services the government considered essential or important for other reasons were exempt from VAT or zero rated - e.g. basic foodstuffs and books. There was a well known court case long ago to decide if Jaffa Cakes were actually cakes, in which case they would be zero rated, or biscuits, in which case VAT would have to be added to the price. McVitie's won.

This policy doesn't affect / remove charitable status. That's not the policy being proposed, which is solely about VAT.

This policy is Labour benefiting from Brexit, as it couldn't happen if we were still in the EU.

You can have a business without shareholders. A profit’s a profit regardless of how it’s spent. They’re businesses.

Private schools are BUSINESSES, albeit businesses with a heart. They exist to serve their customers primarily. They use charitable exemptions because it makes financial good sense. Many of them that are not charities are financially opaque and you cannot find out much about how their finances operate.

My local small “charitable” private school made a £1m surplus last year. It doesn’t do anything much for the community except rent space out (whic is income generating for them) and provide a small number of bursaries to cream off bright well-behaved kids who will boost its academic status. So that serves a self-interest in any case. The Head and deputy head earn £280k between them. This is NOT charity is it, not really.

So it should pay VAT I simply don’t see why not. This is POLICY driven it’s not about raising tax revenue. As a political statement it says, we believe in State provided public services and private enterprise SHOULD pay Appropriate tax. End of story

There are lots of taxes in the UK. Income tax, National Insurance, VAT, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, council tax, stamp duty, the list goes on. Private tutors and specialist teachers should be paying income tax and NIC if they earn enough. They probably don't earn enough to be required to register for VAT and have to charge it on their fees.