Charging VAT on private school fees
But yeah, the government is meant to be bringing in charging VAT on private school fees.
Private schools: When will VAT be added to fees? - BBC News
What is everyones thoughts on this?
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https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7439779
As per the previous thread, I have no problem with it at all. If austerity means that pensioners are losing winter fuel subsidies, I can't think of any reason why people paying for this luxury also shouldn't chip in.
From a personal perspective, I'm glad I only have to find two years of VAT 😂. He's going back to grammar for A levels and the advantage of applying to uni from a "state" school!
If that money won’t 100% be used to improve state schools then forget it, I’m against the VAT in this case.
State schools need to improve in my opinion (in before someone tells me that private schools are somehow worse than state schools on average). Some parents only send their children to a private school because the local state schools are awful and/or failed to meet the needs of their children. If scrapping the tax break means that this money will be used to improve state schools to meet the needs of all pupils then great, I’m all for this.
People seem to have a stereotype in their minds of private school children being those who attend famous boarding schools like Eton and Harrow, whose fees are so high that 20% VAT would be a large sum that can hugely benefit the state sector, and whose parents are so rich that the extra fees wouldn't faze them. The reality is that this is a tiny minority. It underestimates the high proportion of children attending far cheaper private schools, whose parents can only just about afford to send them there, or who rely on scholarships and bursaries to be able to attend.
This means that as a result of VAT, many children who would have otherwise gone to a private school will instead go to a state school. It may not happen all at once with mass transfers from private to state, but in the long term, parents of new pupils joining primary or secondary school for the first time will inevitably be swayed more towards the state sector.
Many people will not see this as a problem: "I attended state school and turned out fine, what's the big deal if they do too?". But it is bad in several ways besides "poor Millie and Hugo having to go to state school with the commoners". For example:
•
It's bad for the taxpayer, who now has to foot the entire bill for their education (around £8k per year per pupil) without collecting any extra tax from them.
•
It's bad for existing state school pupils, who will face greater competition for places at their top choices of school (especially from pupils who can better afford things like private tuition and house prices in catchment areas)
•
It's also bad for existing state school pupils in the sense that their schools will get more overcrowded, with limited resources having to be spread more thinly across more pupils (e.g. real estate, one-on-one time with teachers)
•
It's bad for children who would have benefitted from specialist forms of education that are more readily available at private schools (e.g. special educational needs and disabilities, boarding for military families)
•
It's bad for children who suffer an interruption in their education by having to transfer from one school to another.
The only positive is that yes, the VAT results in some extra money being collected from those who remain in private schools (around £3k per year per pupil). But there are two issues: firstly, most of this gets eroded by the additional costs of educating more children at state school and outweighed by the additional disadvantages outlined above, and secondly there are far better ways of collecting this extra money in a way that doesn't result in a shock to the entire education system (e.g. increasing taxes for those who can easily afford to pay more tax).
People seem to have a stereotype in their minds of private school children being those who attend famous boarding schools like Eton and Harrow, whose fees are so high that 20% VAT would be a large sum that can hugely benefit the state sector, and whose parents are so rich that the extra fees wouldn't faze them. The reality is that this is a tiny minority. It underestimates the high proportion of children attending far cheaper private schools, whose parents can only just about afford to send them there, or who rely on scholarships and bursaries to be able to attend.
This means that as a result of VAT, many children who would have otherwise gone to a private school will instead go to a state school. It may not happen all at once with mass transfers from private to state, but in the long term, parents of new pupils joining primary or secondary school for the first time will inevitably be swayed more towards the state sector.
Many people will not see this as a problem: "I attended state school and turned out fine, what's the big deal if they do too?". But it is bad in several ways besides "poor Millie and Hugo having to go to state school with the commoners". For example:
•
It's bad for the taxpayer, who now has to foot the entire bill for their education (around £8k per year per pupil) without collecting any extra tax from them.
•
It's bad for existing state school pupils, who will face greater competition for places at their top choices of school (especially from pupils who can better afford things like private tuition and house prices in catchment areas)
•
It's also bad for existing state school pupils in the sense that their schools will get more overcrowded, with limited resources having to be spread more thinly across more pupils (e.g. real estate, one-on-one time with teachers)
•
It's bad for children who would have benefitted from specialist forms of education that are more readily available at private schools (e.g. special educational needs and disabilities, boarding for military families)
•
It's bad for children who suffer an interruption in their education by having to transfer from one school to another.
The only positive is that yes, the VAT results in some extra money being collected from those who remain in private schools (around £3k per year per pupil). But there are two issues: firstly, most of this gets eroded by the additional costs of educating more children at state school and outweighed by the additional disadvantages outlined above, and secondly there are far better ways of collecting this extra money in a way that doesn't result in a shock to the entire education system (e.g. increasing taxes for those who can easily afford to pay more tax).
The negatives of VAT would only outweigh the positives if enough people moved out of the private sector. Private school fees have increased considerably over the last two decades (both above inflation and above 20%) yet the percentage of students in private schools has remained roughly constant (~6%). It seems unlikely that there will be a long-term exodus from private schools.
Your comment "It's bad for the taxpayer, who now has to foot the entire bill for their education (around £8k per year per pupil) without collecting any extra tax from them." isn't necessarily true. If someone refuses to pay private school fees because of VAT then they'll likely spend it on something else which is VAT-applicable (at least in part). Their money still exists, the removal of VAT exemptions essentially 'unlock' it to the public.
If someone is doing better, do everything you can to destroy it.
There is no benefit to this.
Taxing people and spending it on services that everyone needs is a tried and tested economic model. It is used by almost every developed country in the world, it works. VAT on private school fees is no more "socialism" than any other tax.
If someone is doing better, do everything you can to destroy it.
There is no benefit to this.
I fail to see how removing a tax break that benefits a small minority constitutes socialism.
Rather than complaining about it, any parents who can no longer afford the fees should take personal responsibility for their family and look to generate additional income.
But yeah, the government is meant to be bringing in charging VAT on private school fees.
Private schools: When will VAT be added to fees? - BBC News
What is everyones thoughts on this?
I don’t understand how anyone can see it as morally right to tax education. What about the SEND students who can’t be supported by state schools and whose parents are stretched to the limit affording to put them in state schools. What about those who aren’t “rich”, but whose parents have worked hard to put them in but now can’t. In all honesty, those who support this tax clearly have a completely biased, stereotypical view of private schools and are (maybe unconsciously) resentful. Why should parents who worked hard to make enough money to give their child a different education be snubbed for that?
Public education exists for all, private education is a luxury. It's morally right to tax private school fees.
What if the child has extra needs that cannot be supported by their local state school? What if there are not sufficient places at their local state school? Even though it’s something extra, I still don’t think you can class arguably better education as a luxury. It’s not the same as going on holiday to Dubai every summer. And in any case, it should be phased in rather than introduced mid academic year to allow parents to make the choice to move their children to state schools.
Your comment "It's bad for the taxpayer, who now has to foot the entire bill for their education (around £8k per year per pupil) without collecting any extra tax from them." isn't necessarily true. If someone refuses to pay private school fees because of VAT then they'll likely spend it on something else which is VAT-applicable (at least in part). Their money still exists, the removal of VAT exemptions essentially 'unlock' it to the public.
I don't really think it's all that relevant how much private school fees have increased historically. These increases have been at the schools' discretion, and will have naturally taken into account the usual supply and demand factors: how much people can afford, what their running costs are, the number of places they can offer etc. and they have also been gradual enough to allow time for people to adjust to the changes. That's quite different from an instantaneous increase of 20% on top of what the school would otherwise be charging, which represents a far greater shock to the system.
I'd also reiterate my point that the positives of charging VAT needs to be considered in the context of what alternative ways there are to collect more taxes. Just because the VAT on private schools raises an extra billion a year or so in taxes doesn't mean this is the best way to do it, all knock-on impacts considered.
Fair point made in your second paragraph though. It depends on what exactly the parents end up spending the money that they saved on school fees on. If I were one of those parents, it would probably go on things like private tuition and getting a house in the catchment area of my preferred state school (which generally do not attract a great deal of tax), but everyone's different.
Rather than complaining about it, any parents who can no longer afford the fees should take personal responsibility for their family and look to generate additional income.
It's the petty act of vindictiveness that permeates the socialists mindset. The idea that someone has something better that they have chosen and are willing to pay for - this makes socialists so hateful and jealous that their recourse is to seek to destroy it.
Because that's what it is. They know full well that the tax is meaningless. It won't raise much in terms of revenue, and will probably mean several schools closing down and a bunch of people losing their jobs - and then you'll have a few thousand kids having to go to state schools....but no extra money to facilitiate that. This is a purely punitive measure.
The idea that this is a tax-break is absurd. Following this exact rationale, there is no reason on earth not to have VAT on university fees. University, if anything is far more selective than school.
1.
As users above have said, 99% of private schools aren't like Eton, Harrow or Westminster. They often include middle class parents that want the absolute best for their kids - even if they have to make some serious sacrifices to do so. Wiping out the middle class from private schools will only just make private schools even more elitist than they already are. For reference, my school is probably on the upper end of private schools in terms of grades - the ratio of white European : others is 28:72 (over 50% of students have at least 1 parents who's an immigrant) - so it's pretty obvious it's not only people who have benefitted from inheritance who end up in private schools. Also, 10% of my year group left due to the VAT - so it's pretty obvious that this will affect kids to a large extent.
2.
Having to change school in the middle of an academic year can be seriously tough for private school kids who were ousted as a result of the VAT. Also, special needs students could be affected to a great extent.
3.
To me, this seems more like a nasty tax rather than anything else. A 2% state school budget increase is going to do absolutely nothing - and I don't think it's worth displacing 50000 students in the near future from their schools for 2%, especially when that 2% will drop once the influx of more pupils is accounted for.
4.
The government basically are reliant on the existence of private schools - it costs them 8000 pounds for the government to educate a child per year, which private schools save. As there are around 600000 private school pupils, the government save around £5bn a year by not having to educate them. If private schools didn't exist, then...
5.
Little to no advantage for non-private school pupils: all that will happen because of the VAT is that state school intake will increase, but the funding would also increase. The quality of state education might increase very marginally but these things aren't linear and quality of education will probably drop in the short-term. There are other problem with this however: those who would've attended private schools might displace state school children applying for grammar schools, house prices would dramatically increase near good state schools etc.
If that money won’t 100% be used to improve state schools then forget it, I’m against the VAT in this case.
State schools need to improve in my opinion (in before someone tells me that private schools are somehow worse than state schools on average). Some parents only send their children to a private school because the local state schools are awful and/or failed to meet the needs of their children. If scrapping the tax break means that this money will be used to improve state schools to meet the needs of all pupils then great, I’m all for this.
If I remember correctly, the VAT will instigate a 2% spending increase in state schools (although it seems likely that state education will struggle in the short-term due to an influx of pupils). I think this figure will be lower once the influx is accommodated for. Imo, a 1-2% increase over an expected 50000 students displaced is not close to worth it.
I think some people want to just punish private schools - in which case this will cause some serious damage to the private sector.
I do have to add however that government money does need to come from somewhere - and maybe VAT on private schools is the first step?
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