Tories will cut school funding by 10%

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/02/conservatives-cut-school-funding-david-cameron-education-budget

Are you doing your A levels? Well if your at sixth form your school is going to get a 10% cut in funding if the Tories get in next election.

What government funding to Harrow and eton get?

Gift aid and charitable status

Hardly huge amounts. Running costs aren't being drawn down.

Yes they are huge amounts. They get a considerable tax reduction.
It's a joke that schools such as Eton, which only the supremely, ultra wealthy can afford to go to is classed as a charity and given money, so long as they occasionally let some school use their football field or some other tiny contribution. The rich are being given more money for being rich, who'd have thought it?

Are you being paid by the Conservatives? Every single post you seem to justify and praise every single Conservative policy past, present and future no matter how odious, It's tedious.

Yes they are huge amounts. They get a considerable tax reduction.
It's a joke that schools such as Eton, which only the supremely, ultra wealthy can afford to go to is classed as a charity and given money, so long as they occasionally let some school use their football field or some other tiny contribution. The rich are being given more money for being rich, who'd have thought it?

Are you being paid by the Conservatives? Every single post you seem to justify and praise every single Conservative policy past, present and future no matter how odious, It's tedious.

Yes they are huge amounts. They get a considerable tax reduction.
It's a joke that schools such as Eton, which only the supremely, ultra wealthy can afford to go to is classed as a charity and given money, so long as they occasionally let some school use their football field or some other tiny contribution. The rich are being given more money for being rich, who'd have thought it?

Are you being paid by the Conservatives? Every single post you seem to justify and praise every single Conservative policy past, present and future no matter how odious, It's tedious.

Seriously though. How can a school that people pay to attend cost the tax payer more when there's no government funding.

Are you being paid by the Conservatives? Every single post you seem to justify and praise every single Conservative policy past, present and future no matter how odious, It's tedious.

Once upon a time most prep schools were private businesses owned by their heads. When they wanted to retire they sold them to a new head.

Normally, since 1973 when a customer buys a service he or she has to pay (now) 20% VAT on top of the price of that service. Charitable private schools are exempt.

By waiving the VAT normally payable on services, that costs the taxpayer VAT that the government would otherwise receive and that has to be made good by taxes elsewhere.

When VAT came in, commercially owned private schools either didn't survive or were given to charitable trusts. The VAT tax break is so great that it drove non-charities out of the market. The tax break not only costs the government large sums of money; it is market distorting and explains why commercial companies do not set up schools.

You seem to have forgot that it's not really cosying tbe taxpayer any thing. The parent paying for their kid to go to private school is a taxpayer in the first place and paying for a place on state education that there not using.

It's a similar concept to private health care. People pay for the nhs but then don't use it because they go private.

You've attempted to justify and rationalise your jealousy and hate by utilising VAT.

Do you feel that the tax payer is loosing out because VAT is exempt on?

Charities and fundraising are exempt VAT. Are you angry with Oxfam?

Are you equally upset that medicines are exempt from vat? Is the tax payer loosing out there?

Should further education no longer be exempt from VAT?

Is it only eton and Harrow that upset you? Or is the less high profile provate schools? What about nursery a and day care?

I'd have more respect for you if you just came out and said you don't kike the type of people who go to Eton and Harrow.

I do not have an jealousy or hate for private schools. Anyone has a choice to buy a service that the state provides for nothing. I can go into Regents Park for nothing but I can pay to look around the gardens at Chatsworth. The fact the state provides a service for free in addition to the service I am using, doesn't normally provide an excuse for that service to be exempt from charging VAT.



Yes, I am a lot more angry with Oxfam (though hypocritically I am still a customer) but for slightly more complicated reasons.

Most of the goods Oxfam sells are exempt from VAT regardless of the status of the seller. Oxfam's big tax break is the rates exemption. Not only does that reduce the cost of Oxfam operating shops but also now that rates are charged on empty properties, it enables them to secure and retain shops at low rents. Indeed, though this tends to affect warehouses rather than shops, landlords now pay charities to occupy premises in order to secure the rates exemption for the building.

These are some press articles about the big bad Oxfam

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/aug/04/oxfam-shops-booksellers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8995389/State-of-donation-Oxfam-takes-over-the-high-street.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/5973268/True-book-lovers-will-never-love-Oxfam.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8184865.stm



The tax breaks here are (1) effectively available to all although I appreciate only the ill take advantage of medicine and (2) are not market distorting. Medicines supplied by Boots get the same treatment as medicines supplied by the Red Cross.



I think you missed my preceding post where I was defending Eton from an unwarranted attack that it was doing little in response to its tax breaks.

I am a lot less generous about Harrow. This is a complete list of Harrow's community service http://www.harrowschool.org.uk/library/client/documents/overview/Harrow%20School%20Record%20of%20Public%20Benefit%20and%20Philanthropic%20Activity%20-%20Password%20Protected.xlsx and frankly if you looked at the Comp down the road, it would be doing more. Of all the major independent schools in the London area, it seems to be the least visible.



I am afraid that you only seem to be able to see this as a class war issue.

Without the tax break for independent schools, this country would be full of private providers competing on price, rather than a few fancy dancy operations competing on the fittings of their new theatres.

My my my you are an angry person aren't you?

You feel like you're missing out don't you? Trying to calculate all of the money you think the state could give you in additimal benefits and freebies.

Nope.

Just highlighting that illegal to be poor creates a 'conservatives are bad' post every other day based on generally nothing.

I don't do the jealousy. Just reality.

Seriously though. How can a school that people pay to attend cost the tax payer more when there's no government funding.

Lets try and make this simple for you. The tax break keeps out commercial private sector investment in education in this country.

Genuine charities such as Cancer research which work for the benefit of everyone deserve a tax break. Schools such as Eton which are for the ultra wealthy do not.

Why not eliminate tax on education, period?

After all, education works for "the benefit of everyone", right?