Any other Heads publicly worrying about VAT?

[JustanotherBerkshiremum]

DCs at an independent school. The Head is obsessed by the proposed VAT implementation. Since October he has raised this issue in all public correspondence, ie newsletters, the school magazine and the end of term letter.

Are any other Heads out there publicly worrying about the future to their parents or is it just ours? You don’t need to name the school.

I get that it’s an issue but the school can finally claim back VAT. And if they get decent tax advice then they can cushion it a bit more. And it will only happen after the next election if (because nothing set in stone) Labour get in which is two years away.

I’d rather the Head kept his thoughts to himself at the moment. Am I being too harsh?

So the “privilege” comes from being able to pay for tutors rather than going to schools with sub standard teachers? In that case, there’s an argument for adding a tax charge for the use of tutors.

The majority of parents do not use tutors, nor do they go on holiday for months at a time, let alone take a tutor with them. For those families that do, the VAT on fees will make no difference. It’ll be the other families who struggle to pay. This is precisely why the policy will create an even more elite system. It’ll push out families who don’t have pots of spare cash.

Some people seem to have visions of private schools all being filled with children of super wealthy families with money to burn. The reality is not like that.

Indeed.

Both our excellent Comp Sci teachers were poached by a local private school, and the last couple of terms of A level were taught by someone that didn’t have the knowledge (fortunately the kids were savvy enough to cover the content themselves).

The bigger problem is that the more you detach the payment of tax from the receipt of services from the state, the less people paying the taxes will care about supporting the spending of the state and the less they will be prepared to pay tax either through avoiding tax or promotion of politicians who will cut it. That’s why we have the pension for everyone and don’t means test it. But with private schools, not only are they not funded (like they are in eg Australia) they want to tax people for the privilege of sparing government the cost of educating their kids. I think Labour will be storing up a real problem for themselves, way bigger than is solved by the amount they intend to collect.