All Private School Parents Should Get State School Places to Fight Back VAT

[LondonSam]

All Private School Parents Should Get State School Places to Fight Back VAT

Anyone planning to buy into a state school catchment after this news?

This maisonette is in catchment for the school Mr Starmer’s children attended.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149413295

Private education is a luxury. It should be taxed as such.

Where did this idea that VAT is a tax on luxuries come from? It's not a luxury tax. It replaced a luxury tax, but VAT itself is not a tax on luxuries. We haven't had a luxury tax in the UK since the 70s.

Oh please. Not everyone with money has a complex system of businesses that allows for dubious ways of claiming back tax

Most people with dc ar private schools are just straight up PAYE high earners.

Great idea OP.

As long as a law comes in to the effect that if you transfer from private to state you have to pay a fine equal to the former schools fees to the new school.

This wouldn't necessarily achieve what you are intending. In some parts of the country there are falling rolls in secondary and exiles from private schools would be welcomed with open arms.

Oh do bore off. No one cares other than a tiny minority.

Private education is a luxury, you pay tax on all other luxuries. Either pay it, or accept that you can't actually afford it!

I’m interested to know how an accountant would write off school fees. What against?

Blimey -where abouts? Where we’ve just moved from the local schools had hundreds on wait lists and kids in catchment were being bused all o f the place.

Why? All children are entitled to a state school place

They will have to find spaces for them?

Yes, do come and join us.

Except you won't, will you?

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Oh OP, if people with dcs in private schools were prepared to send their dcs to state schools, private schools would already be a thing of the past.

the state will provide a place for all children, it might not be at your preferred school but you will be offered a place somewhere in your county. In many school years there are spaces already.

waiting lists for one particular school does not mean there aren’t spaces available in that school year elsewhere in the county.

It’s a good thing that I totally support. We need tax rises and this only tax those who are more able.

We pay VAT for many things. Maybe you should lobby to get them dropped? VAT is usually a regressive tax because the poor pays a lot more of their income on VAT.

Plenty of places in state primaries where I am. Some are closing due to low birth rate. Secondaries spaces are rarer but the last bulge year will be year 8 in September. This situation will pass in 4 years.

If you pay cash in hand to the headmaster does he knock the VAT off like a builder would?

@Devonbabs Hampshire 2024 Year 7 admission numbers. Even with the threat of VAT, quite a few secondaries admitted less than PAN in 2024. Maybe not desirable secondaries. But you asked where and I’m sure you can find secondaries in many counties which aren’t filling PAN for year 7 in September. They are planning for dramatic drop in numbers.

So it's ok to pay vat on gas and electricity - essential services we all need but not on a service you're taking out of choice?

But this is still a regressive tax. Middle class family only just scraping together fees will pay the same amount as wealthy family for whom the VAT is a drop in the ocean. Wealthy family transferring to state school (or already in state school) will pay nothing at all.

As for applying for state places, why do people keep saying that the only important thing is whether or not there are spaces available? Surely the more significant thing is that the taxpayer will still have to pay to educate that child (the 6K a year per pupil funding), regardless of how many spaces there are. If course the state school will be delighted to receive that funding - but it's still the taxpayer who has to pay for it. 'Free' school spaces aren't free!

Do it. I dare you.

Without the pupils, some state schools are heading for closure. Having some more students from the private sector is a good thing. State schools are funded per student. They don’t get money for empty spaces.

You mean, the councils will? Well, yes, they're entitled to an education, and places will have to be found somewhere. But you can't stroll in off the street into your chosen leafy state grammar and expect everyone else to shove up and make room, which seems to be the mood on these threads.
I know it's a simplistic response to think 'ha ha, tax the rich, won't affect me'. Because additional pupils to educate will of course have an impact on other pupils getting places further down the line. Right now, in lots of areas it's far too late to have any prospect of a place in the kind of school a fee-paying parent might want for their children. Unless there's been a mass exodus of families with children, these types of first choice schools will be full next term. The 'we'll crowd them out and fuck them up' brigade make even less sense than the 'ha ha, won't affect me' lot.

I just don't believe that parents who chose to go private are already so stretched by fees that large numbers will withdraw their children

If ideologically you believe in private education, then you'll find that twenty percent. Cancel the ski trips, dip into savings. Ask granny.

I think there's a lot of parents moaning who lack any self awareness when lots of families rely on help to give their kids breakfast

Yes @ArabellaFishwife but that's only true for moves this year. The 'crowding out' effect won't start to be seen until next year when people start going through the state system at the main entry points who would otherwise have gone private. (Though I bet there are plenty of families currently holding Year 7 places in both state and private schools for September who'll now choose to take up their state place. That will affect availability of late places for kids still on waiting lists for state places, eg who are hoping for a better school than the one allocated, or who are moving house late.)

@SummerBarbecues that's my point. Empty places don't cost the taxpayer anything until they're filled. If a class has 25 pupils currently because a school is under subscribed, it will cost the taxpayer £30K per year to fill those five places with ex private school pupils. If they stayed in private schools, it would cost the taxpayer nothing. Even more of an impact if the number of pupils moving mean that the school needs more teachers or more classrooms. That's great for the school of course, but it's still a cost to the taxpayer.

That is not true. VAT is not a tax on luxury items.