Tax on school fees

[CheekyUser]

of course it won’t affect the really wealthy but we have three kids at private school and we are now going to withdraw them all. We will see them through the remainder of this school year and from September we have secured places at local state schools. When the alternative is free why would we carry on drawing down on our mortgage and sacrificing holidays and be taxed for doing so. Let the state pay.

I suppose that if the year 12 offer is five GCSEs at grade five and OP's children are predicted ten at grade 9 , she knows it'll be "secured"

Another 2 closures to be announced. That's 6 since 1st January! Now over 1000 kids needing new schools + 100s teacher + staff redundancies.

And now Bow House has confirmed closure

Well done Rachel Reeves- you are making a great success of this. Highest growth in the G7 to zero six months. Highest cost of borrowing since 1998, UK bond and equity markets in freefall. Pound at its lowest level since 2023. Schools closing. What is the opposite of the Midas touch?

Well this is exactly what happened to Greece when they tried to tax indy schools and they then had to back track and scrap the policy

As predicted, it all looks far more like Greece than any of us even dared to fear.

Let’s hope Reeves is holed up in a room with Andrew Bailey figuring out something and reversing the QT and coming up with a credible counter plan.

What I find weird is that all these parents are allegedly working all the hours full time plus to pay for private school fees yet they are on here all day every day saying the same things over and over. They must have very understanding employers.

And if you read WHY these schools are closing you’ll find out that they have been struggling for YEARS to stay open. Poor financial management, dropping pupil numbers, the costs of running massive buildings and facilities… it’s got fuck all to do with VAT.
But losing tax breaks is of course a nice tidy way of pushing the blame elsewhere.

Believe that if you want but can't you see that reduced pupil numbers due to VAT plus rise in NI plus increased business rates = straw that broke the camels back? Indy schools don't have a big surplus, work on tight margins and average 1 term's surplus. Labour's triple whammy is just too much.

This is exactly what happened when Greece tried to tax schools. So many were forced to close that the government had to u-turn and stop the policy.
Labour were warned repeatedly about that and many of us highlighted it on here only to be told "you are lying, no schools will have to close". Well, 8 in 1 week is a pretty sizeable amount!!!

@Liddlemoreaction - too late to deny that Labour are shit at the economy now and cannot do basic maths. This VAT policy is just another very stark symptom of that.
Clearly you are also having some trouble doing basic maths? If 15k (and incentivised to work for it) plus 3k to HMRC is greater than 7.5k paid out by the education budget/and more bunged into a pension grossed up.

Some of us are just quite efficient at our working from home jobs. Like we are at replying to your tax break nonsense.

Agree@Araminta1003
I would remind those posting that previous threads on this clearly noted the so called maths for this policy
Labour did not consult those that could be affected once
They made up their figures based on ifs and buts with little emphasis on the ifs and ignored the clear advice from the ISC.

This is what gives WFH a bad name. It doesn't matter how 'efficient' you may think you are, wasting hours every day saying the same old things while being paid is hardly ethical. Maybe you could all actually do some work and contribute to the economy rather than just dissing it.

I bill per minutes spend on my work tasks, so there are no concerns there, sorry to disappoint you. Every task is billed in 6 minute increments. I am just more efficient than you can imagine and I also quite enjoy late nights.

Sorry are you the work police? Some of us don't have strict 9-5 presenteeism employers. Some of us are highly efficient in our jobs and work better very early (5am) or very late (10pm). Maybe just stick your nose out of how other people work

Or maybe just change your full time job title to 'Harbinger of Doom'?

Sorry I think that title has already been taken by Rachel Reeves, if we are resorting to calling people names. Highly mature.

Oh I forgot in some people's worlds, all roads have to lead back to slighting the Labour cabinet. It is so tedious.

You are the one on here calling people names so stop trying to take the high road, you abandoned it with that comment. It is fine for you to call me names but not for me to 'slight' a minister?

It's not a single slighting of a minister. It's all the repetitive complaining about Labour and the cabinet on these threads. We are all stuck with this government for quite a while whether we like it or not. No amount of repeating the same grievances is going to change that and VAT is now in place. It's old news.

We are allowed to complain the day the pound crashes and Government debt soars to 2008 financial crash levels and private schools are going bust galore. It’s not any old day you know. It’s an unprecedented shit show and the official six months Labour honeymoon period is truly over, whether anyone likes it or not. It’s depressing all round.

And I assume for the private school parents VAT isn’t old news, it’s just kicking in. The schools are given no real guidance, people are losing their jobs, schools are going bust.

It's not just indy school threads FYI, there was one on the Feminist board the other day and more + more are cropping up in Chat/AIBU cos quite frankly, Labour are a shit show.

You can always choose to scroll on, no-one forces you to engage. Personally I won't stop being vocal until the outcome of the 4 x legal challenges are decided. If it winds you up so much STOP ENGAGING

Who do you think you are to say who can comment or not? Someone is very, very deluded indeed. Now bore off.

You are the one complaing about "It's all the repetitive complaining about Labour and the cabinet on these threads. We are all stuck with this government for quite a while whether we like it or not"

If we bore you so much then just scroll past. It's really not a hard concept

No my dear. You don't decide who scrolls, posts or whatever. It's an open forum not an echo chamber.