When will VAT legal challenge outcome become known?

[kitz90]

Does anyone know the answer to this?

(I’m to pay the first invoice with VAT on it and pondering what will happen if the legal case is successful).

I’m going to be blunt so please don’t take offence. It’s not going to happen - at least not for mainstream students maybe some provisions will be put in place for SEND children but otherwise just pay the invoice and forget about it. Sorry. In the unlikely event it does happen the schools would revert it back to parents.

I have an advanced law degree from UCL and studied the human rights bases, including the one this challenge this one was once based on.
Never ever has the high court or the Supreme Court overturned a government tax decision on the submission of a human rights argument, ever.
Given that we live in a common law system, err, it’s not going to happen.

Have there been many Supreme Court cases where a tax decision has been challenged on human rights grounds? I’d assumed it was rather novel but perhaps not (I just have a bog standard Oxbridge law degree but it’s not my area of expertise).

@kitz90 the only legal challenge that has actually been launched so far was in relation to SEN kids, so even if it’s successful (which sounds unlikely) it wouldn’t have a wider effect. And all that would happen is Parliament would have to debate if any how to amend the VAT policy to make it compliant with HR law in relation to SEN kids

The Independent Schools Council is reported to be bringing a wider challenge but I’m not sure it’s been started yet.

Well played, @TheWrongBus

Yet Lord Pannick is leading the ISC challenge. He was the lawyer who previously advised Labour that it couldn't/shouldn't be done (they accepted his advice at the time) . So I think I will take his opinion over yours. He is extremely knowledgeable about this particular area.

Well quite
what exactly is an "advanced law degree" anyway ? You either have a bachelor's, a masters or a PhD.

Well a regular law degree is 3 years. Law with Advanced Legal studies was 4 years allowing increased specialisation. This was in 2006 though.

Fully admit I got the above wrong- tbh just copied it from another poster on another thread.

I can’t apologise enough…

Interesting..... all degrees are 4 years in Scotland. Plus an additional diploma year on top for solicitors.

Not before you have to pay next term’s fees

This.

Pay it, assume you won’t be getting it back, If and when the case comes to court in the next 6-12 months or whatever, in the fairly unlikely event ISC win, it will be thrown back to parliament to debate, which will then take some more months.

Thanks everyone. Just to be clear I wasn’t wondering whether or not to pay the invoice. The invoice just got me thinking about the legal case itself which I had otherwise forgotten about✌️

Also, I managed to duplicate this post (whoops!) hence the two separate threads running!

I tell you what he is - absolutely fucking MINTED! He’s paid a fortune. He makes more money the longer this drags on. He’s ‘opinion’ really is irrelevant and all the ISC is doing by hiring him is proving that private schools are desperate to protect their tax breaks.

He is hardly irrelevant. He was previously hired by Labour under Blair to look into this and advised them not to do it. They accepted his advice then. You can read his report.
This was his warning to Labour in July:
Crossbench peer and KC Lord Pannick has said that the Labour Party’s plans to impose VAT on private school fees is likely to breach human rights law.
Lord Pannick said: “It would be strongly arguable that for a new government to impose VAT on independent schools would breach the right to education. That is because all other educational services will remain exempt from VAT and the charging of VAT on independent schools alone is designed to impede private education – and will have that effect.”
Pannick added that the VAT policy could breach two articles in the European Convention on Human Rights which protect the right to education.

Jeremy Hysm QC has also written:
is frankly incompatible with the right to education and plurality of choice in education as guaranteed by A2P1 and the right of peaceful enjoyment of possessions protected under A1P1. Put another way, it is plurality not ‘social justice’ in education that is the core guarantee conferred by A2P1 and it is plurality, not ‘social justice’ which ‘is essential for the preservation of the “democratic society” as conceived by the Convention’. None of this means that the removal of social injustice and inequalities are not laudable objectives for the Labour Party to pursue in the best interests of society as a whole. But in the educational sphere, the means by which those objectives are sought to be achieved must be compatible with the guarantee of freedom of choice in education in the Convention.

Posh boys opinions on posh schools are hardly neutral, are they?

This is both ridiculous and reductive.

Many KCs will be privately educated. Some will agree with Pannick and some will not. The legal opinion and the personal opinion would be separated by any lawyer, let alone one at this level.

I think (but IANAL) that there isn’t a strong case here to achieve what the ISC et al would like to achieve, but I certainly don’t think Pannick is just a posh boy saying posh boy things.

The most stupid comment of the day! You think lawyers just use their own personal opinion to argue cases?

I keep reading this and my god it irritates me. Independent schools do not and have not ever had tax 'breaks'. Like every other aspect of education (and the insurance, finance, gambling industries, to mention just a few), they are (or were) exempt from taxation. Even the f*ing treasury can't seem to get this right (see recent tweets).

Not being charged full business rates, being allowed charity status for other benefits, avoiding VAT = tax breaks.
All that’s happening is tax breaks being removed. It’s hardly the end of the world that some parents are claiming.

Being exempt VAT isn't avoiding VAT or a tax break for crying out loud!
Education is exempt across Europe as an agreed principle and it's illegal in EU to tax it. That's why only Brexit enabled Labour to do this!

You aren't granted charity status to enable "other benefits". They are legally enshrined charities. Same as state academies, churches etc.

Lord Pannick said: “It would be strongly arguable that for a new government to impose VAT on independent schools would breach the right to education.

”Strongly arguable” - that’s barrister speak for “I wouldn’t be embarrassed to make this argument in court but it’s a long shot”. Definitely doesn’t mean it will win.

There are 3 separate legal challenges, it only needs 1 to win.

Right, but that doesn’t mean any of them are particularly strong.

The SEN and single sex challenges are the strongest imo but I'm not a lawyer. There is also 1 x Scottish challenge in addition to the 3 x English ones

Cuvuvi