VAT on Private Schools Kicks In

[Mr Retro]

According to Reeves it’s to provide funds for children who have “… been held back, not because of a lack of talent, but a lack of opportunity.” She will start to change this by “ending the tax break enjoyed by private schools so we can put more money into our state schools.”

So the start of the change but we are not told of what else is coming. Figures are (naturally) thin on the ground but it will provide 6500 teachers apparently. This will do nothing at all to help state sector schools in my opinion.

This could be a long opening post but do you think this will help the state sector or is it just a populist tax? Will labour really improve the state school system?

 

[Ax^]

Call me daft but what the arguement against public school fees not be subject to vat?

if the arguement is rich people are clutching their pearls about it .. they should pay double vat

 

[chilango]

It's largely pointless bullshit.

Private schools can now claim back VAT on capital expenses (new buildings etc.) iirc. Which they'll fiddle the fuck out of.

Children with EHCPs are exempt (again iirc) - so LAs will be flooded with applications, and then inevitably appeals, costing them a fortune. Sharp elbowed parents are lawyering up for this as we speak.

...and it's not touching the reproduction of privilege. The rich have made way more in wealth increases in recent years than this will cost them.

 

[Sasaferrato]

According to Reeves it’s to provide funds for children who have “… been held back, not because of a lack of talent, but a lack of opportunity.” She will start to change this by “ending the tax break enjoyed by private schools so we can put more money into our state schools.”

So the start of the change but we are not told of what else is coming. Figures are (naturally) thin on the ground but it will provide 6500 teachers apparently. This will do nothing at all to help state sector schools in my opinion.

This could be a long opening post but do you think this will help the state sector or is it just a populist tax? Will labour really improve the state school system?

There is a chronic shortage of teachers, and more leave each week. Where does the venal liar think that the 6500 new teachers are coming from?

A neighbour's daughter is a teacher but is considering leaving. She was assaulted five times in the last term, that was physically assaulted. Verbally? To often to count them.

She teaches five year olds.

 

[Mr Retro]

For transparency I send my only child to a private school. The education she receives is really excellent.

Like all the tax, I don’t mind paying the extra tax if it will make a positive difference. Hopefully this tax will prove the exception and there really are more measures coming to improve the state school sector.

 

[chilango]

...equally, for transparency, I work in a private school.

 

[Winot]

Like all the tax, I don’t mind paying the extra tax if it will make a positive difference. Hopefully this tax will prove the exception and there really are more measures coming to improve the state school sector.

By ‘exception’ do you mean that most tax doesn’t make a positive difference?

 

[Silas Loom]

It's largely pointless bullshit.

Private schools can now claim back VAT on capital expenses (new buildings etc.) iirc. Which they'll fiddle the fuck out of.

Children with EHCPs are exempt (again iirc) - so LAs will be flooded with applications, and then inevitably appeals, costing them a fortune. Sharp elbowed parents are lawyering up for this as we speak.

...and it's not touching the reproduction of privilege. The rich have made way more in wealth increases in recent years than this will cost them.

You can’t really “fiddle the fuck” out of VAT unless you are prepared to commit serious fraud and then phoenix a company. Input VAT is black and white and it requires an audit trail of VAT invoices from suppliers.

 

[SpookyFrank]

There is a chronic shortage of teachers, and more leave each week. Where does the venal liar think that the 6500 new teachers are coming from?

A neighbour's daughter is a teacher but is considering leaving. She was assaulted five times in the last term, that was physically assaulted. Verbally? To often to count them.

She teaches five year olds.

Primary seems to be worse than secondary for assaults on staff. Also children starting there having had basically zero socialisation of any kind. Children who can't say their own names.

 

[chilango]

You can’t really “fiddle the fuck” out of VAT unless you are prepared to commit serious fraud and then phoenix a company. Input VAT is black and white and it requires an audit trail of VAT invoices from suppliers.

More in terms of tactically choosing when and what to build in order to maximise what they can claim. Legal, of course, but in practice a way of dodging paying up.

 

[philosophical]

What is the ‘excellent’ education that is supposedly delivered at private schools?
It is exam results, not ‘education’ in a thought out sense.
Smaller class sizes help teachers get on the case of individuals more, and the kids make an effort because their folks are paying for it hence they are in a position to get the grades. In addition even in those circumstances some people pay for private tuition in some subjects, notably Mathematics, but the school will still claim the credit for the results if they are good. Many private schools filter at the start anyway, looking for those likely to get good grades.
The debate about the VAT is going on, but so far I have not heard the argument that private schools are private business that can (and some do) simply shut down just like that, as Debenhams did, or any private businesses.
When there is a system that private schools never ever close at the veritable drop of a hat, then there may be a case for looking at VAT or whatnot, otherwise people can pay up the fee including the VAT just as they pay VAT on a car or a chair.

 

[Silas Loom]

More in terms of tactically choosing when and what to build in order to maximise what they can claim. Legal, of course, but in practice a way of dodging paying up.

That isn’t really an incentive, you still have to spend the actual money, and it only defrays the VAT pot which is customer money anyway, held on HMRC’s behalf! It makes zero difference to a VAT-charging business whether suppliers are VATable or not.

 

[Silas Loom]

It’s true that up until now, schools had an incentive to use suppliers which were not VAT registered, but as the threshold for registration is way below the point at which a business can take the risk and pain of tendering for public sector contracts, that’s unlikely to have any impact on the schools supply market.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

We shouldn’t be charging VAT on private schools, we should be abolishing them.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Yeah, I have to agree that doesn't make much sense as an objection tbh. It's no different to any other business is it but VAT income isn't zero.

 

[Mr Retro]

By ‘exception’ do you mean that most tax doesn’t make a positive difference?

I feel we do so little with our tax compared to countries like the Netherlands where I’ve lived.

 

[Mr Retro]

What is the ‘excellent’ education that is supposedly delivered at private schools?
It is exam results, not ‘education’ in a thought out sense.
Smaller class sizes help teachers get on the case of individuals more, and the kids make an effort because their folks are paying for it hence they are in a position to get the grades. In addition even in those circumstances some people pay for private tuition in some subjects, notably Mathematics, but the school will still claim the credit for the results if they are good.

Smaller class sizes one of, if not the major benefit I see of private education. I don’t think kids make more of an effort because parents are paying.

I’ll get my child a private tutor probably. I don’t really care who will claim the credit.

The imbalance in education in this country is the problem. Making parents pay or not pay VAT if its not part of an overarching plan is just more tax money to be wasted.

 

[zedr]

I dont know enough about the economic projections to be able to judge whether I think its a good thing or not. The spiteful part of me is glad that its upsetting all the right people, but I don't think it brings us any closer to universally available, quality, free education.

The 6,500 more teachers figure irks me too. There are just shy of 25,000 state funded schools. Crowing about providing each school with one more teacher when many schools are well above capacity, relying on agency staff, in buildings which are crumbling is infuriating smug bullshit. Where is the proposed capital spending to improve schools? Where are the plans to provide more teacher training courses? Where is the funding for more (and properly paid) TAs? Where is the money to staff CAMHS properly? Until any of that happens, this is just a bit of a sideshow.

 

[chilango]

Of course private schools offer advantages over state schools. That's why people continue to pay for them.

How much of this advantage is in the "quality of education" is a whole other question.

 

[brogdale]

Ending the VAT exemption on private schools is only now possible because the UK left the EU. Council directive 2006/112/EC, Chapter 2, 1, i determined that

"member states shall exempt [from VAT] the provision of children's or young people's education, school or university education, vocational training or retraining, including the supply of services and of goods closely related thereto, by bodies governed by public law having such as their aim or by other organisations recognised by the Member State concerned as having similar objects"

A Brexit benefit?

 

[zedr]

I’ll get my child a private tutor probably. I don’t really care who will claim the credit.

Anecdotally, I've got quite a few friends who tutor private school kids (and charge ludicrous amounts per hour). Their experience is usually that the parents credit them with any progress their little one has made and blame the school for any lack of progress (complaining about lazy teachers etc) regardless of whether its accurate or not.

 

[Silas Loom]

is just more tax money to be wasted.

Why do you think that tax money is wasted?

 

[brogdale]

Isn't it odd that the Faragists seem reluctant to champion this Brexit benefit?

 

[Poot]

We shouldn’t be charging VAT on private schools, we should be abolishing them.

Absolutely.

If a child isn't getting support with x y and z at a state school, we should be spending more on state schools. It should really be illegal to pay for education.

 

[Winot]

Absolutely.

If a child isn't getting support with x y and z at a state school, we should be spending more on state schools. It should really be illegal to pay for education.

Including private tutoring?

 

[philosophical]

This initiative might mean that now is the time to reflect on what society means by, or wants from, what it calls ‘education’.
As one example, is carrying around a load of knowledge in the head, that exams test, education?
You can find stuff out more or less instantly these days using technology.
Maybe education should be about problem solving more, or cooperation, or creativity, or physical skills, or life skills to cope with the complex demands of society, financial management, road safety, healthy nutrition, moral dilemmas, team work, competition and so on and on and on.
The curriculum as it seems to be dictated seems out of touch with what is needed in 2025.
Additionally you can’t ’teach’ everything, so how do you assemble the priorities and then ‘measure’ the learning.

 

[redsquirrel]

In the wider point I agree with chilango this is a weak pathetic moving of deckchairs that will do nothing to support education.

The only minor positive is that I get a certain schadenfreude at the whining parents who will have to cough up a little bit more for the privilege of harming the education of the overwhelming majority.

 

[maomao]

This initiative might mean that now is the time to reflect on what society means by, or wants from, what it calls ‘education’.
As one example, is carrying around a load of knowledge in the head, that exams test, education?
You can find stuff out more or less instantly these days using technology.
Maybe education should be about problem solving more, or cooperation, or creativity, or physical skills, or life skills to cope with the complex demands of society, financial management, road safety, healthy nutrition, moral dilemmas, team work, competition and so on and on and on.
The curriculum as it seems to be dictated seems out of touch with what is needed in 2025.
Additionally you can’t ’teach’ everything, so how do you assemble the priorities and then ‘measure’ the learning.

Skills are an accumulation of knowledge, it's not either/or.

I can't imagine anyone who sends a kid to private school but is poor enough that I give a ruck about them paying extra money. I used to have a boss, a headmaster no less, who claimed that his working class mother had sent him to Dulwich College on a single wage. I would be fine with him having to have gone to a state school.

 

[Winot]

I feel we do so little with our tax compared to countries like the Netherlands where I’ve lived.

It's just that "tax isn't spent how I'd like it to be" is a pretty common response from those who want to pay less tax.

 

[Red Cat]

Its performative and manipulative and will make no difference to anything. I do feel some concern for those that know their child would find a mainstream secondary too much but wouldn't qualify for an EHCP. I don't know what percentage that would be, no doubt small, but it does mean not everyone is paying for private education for exactly the same reasons.

What's needed is smaller schools and class sizes, fewer people in adequate spaces. It's obvious and I don't know why it's not talked about because it can't be any more expensive than the current SEN and MH crisis.