VAT on Private Schools poll

[Rich B]

Not sure if we already covered this angle, but I assume the VAT proposal will also apply to private faith schools ? Let's chuck a jerry can of racism onto this bonfire of an argument

If I was an argumentative man (!) I'd be questioning why that would be racist? If you singled out Hindu schools and not Christian ones, then yep - but faith isn't race?

But yep, if people want to send their kids to a specific private faith school, then I don't see why they should get any different treatment to any other private school.

[Sundayjumper]

You’d be surprised on what costs a school suffers on which VAT could be claimed back. Eg: IT equipment, premises costs, maintenance, training, marketing etc. I’ve just cherry picked items from a set of accounts I’m looking at now.

I know our VAT partner and audit partners are looking at this for our clients. I’ll feedback once I know more.

IT I'd considered. Premises & maintenance falls under FM; will vary between establishments, whether it's leased or owned, whether services are in-house or contracted out. Training & marketing I'd not thought of, good point.

The amount passed on to the parents is a decision and will probably involve the schools absorbing some of it. I'm interested to see how the more strictly calculated underlying input/output delta that your folk are looking at pans out.

[Sundayjumper]

...but faith isn't race?

No, but there's enough of a correlation that if faith schools were excepted, outlets like the Daily Mail would probably be happy to get their readers worked up claiming there's tax breaks for people-that-don't-look-exactly-like-they-do.

Agreed they need to be treated equally.

[Nic]

Even if I had to pay the full 20% increase it wouldn’t negatively affect me enough to pull my kids out of private school. One has a year left and the younger one has 5 years left including A levels.

Most parents I know who use private schools are investing in their children’s future now rather than giving them a load of coin via inheritance later in life.

[Beany]

"Look at us, we're performatively punishing the more wealthy...

Taking aim at private schooling seems transparently ideologically-driven.

The ideology of hitting the rich/more fortunate/the type who send their kids to private school/or however the empty vessels of the left who's vote Labour want to retain describe anyone who's done enough well in life to not rely on the state for everything is basically what I was getting at

Again, same as the national service schtick - it's to get the empty vessel vote.

[ZedLeg]

Governments hit the rich for new tax policy because that’s where the money is.

No point trying to tax folk who are already skint.

How else would you raise funds through taxation?

It’s only ideological if you’re such a libertarian that you don’t think you should have to pay tax.

[Mito Man]

"Look at us, we're performatively punishing the more wealthy...

Taking aim at private schooling seems transparently ideologically-driven.

The ideology of hitting the rich/more fortunate/the type who send their kids to private school/or however the empty vessels of the left who's vote Labour want to retain describe anyone who's done enough well in life to not rely on the state for everything is basically what I was getting at

Again, same as the national service schtick - it's to get the empty vessel vote.

So was Brexit, and we all know how that went

[GG.]

Governments hit the rich for new tax policy because that’s where the money is.

No point trying to tax folk who are already skint.

How else would you raise funds through taxation?

It’s only ideological if you’re such a libertarian that you don’t think you should have to pay tax.

Its ideological because the reality is it will raise no tax net of additional provision being required in the state sector. That and the loss of teaching and admin jobs from Private schools firing employees.

It is ideological because the idea you can pay to have a better education that the state can provide is anaethema to the left and they would like to do everything possible to discourage it. Part of the leftist worldview is that you want people to be dependent on the state because you control that and therefore you can control people's behaviours. The fact that Private schools do not subscribe to a left leaning agenda like the state system also factors into the equation.

The fact that the proposal is to tax it at the full 20% rate rather than a reduced rate also shows the intent to harm the sector as much as possible. Otherwise surely you'd bring this in at a 5% rate and work up from there to adjudge at what point the demand elasticity has been reached and it become a net cost rather than tax raising.

[ZedLeg]

I love when the most right wing people I’ve ever met explain what being left wing means to me

[Mito Man]

I've just seen the labour advert on this.
"Recruit 6,500 new teachers in key subjects to set children up for life, work and the future, paid for by ending tax breaks for private schools'

6500 teachers is not very many, hopefully they have 6500 spare classrooms too. That's also not even 0.5 teachers per school. Bugger all effect on overcrowded classrooms in reality.
I guess they're just banking on the population here slowly becoming more and more infertile for it to sort itself out

[GG.]

I love when the most right wing people I’ve ever met explain what being left wing means to me

If a tax policy that raises no tax is anything other than idelogical or 'behaviour nudging' please explain it to me. It not a point of political debate but one of pure logic.

[Beany]

I'm just quoting this for posterity before it gets edited out

Part of the leftist worldview is that you want people to be dependent on the state because you control that and therefore you can control people's behaviours

[ZedLeg]

It doesn’t matter to me whether the policy happens or not tbh, I’m not even voting labour.

I just think this is a rare good idea from them.

I don’t think it’s ideological mostly because current Labour are ideologically closer to the conservatives than they are to “The Left”.

That kind of talk is just “champagne socialist” “politics of envy” tedious tubthumping.

[Sundayjumper]

My previous fag packet calc was 100 new schools needed - that’ll absorb at least half of the 6,500 immediately.

There will be some additional teachers on the market if the private schools cut headcount, but they might go straight to retirement or simply not want to work in the state sector.

There IS a way to reduce fertility. It’ll be, errr, unpopular though.

[GG.]

I'm just quoting this for posterity before it gets edited out

Part of the leftist worldview is that you want people to be dependent on the state because you control that and therefore you can control people's behaviours

I'm not sure why you think this is a controversial statement? Bodies outside of state control (directly or by funding) are inherently a risk to a paternalist socialist state.

[ZedLeg]

You know that even the rest of the left hate authoritarian leftists right?

[Swervin_Mervin]

Still intrigued to know how they're going to single private schooling specifically out of the sector wide exemption.

[Carlos]

There's a heavy assumption here that 1000's will end up in state schools and no net tax gain which is frankly nonsense, the fallout will be miniscule.

If you are that way inclined and want to send your kids to a private school it will still happen.

The other aspect not mentioned here once is who actually pays for private education. From my experience its nearly always out of capital, inheritance, an early inheritance or the grandparent/aunty etc, the latter few in turn reduce wealthy peoples estates and in turn inheritance tax.

[Rich B]

There'll be loads of empty schools and free teachers that the state can snap up cheap when the 40%* of pupils leave private schools!

Or, there'll be minimal change to pupil numbers and the whole thing will carry on as is with a bit more money going into the government pot.

I suspect option 2 is more likely.

*number provided by the daily mail.

[Sundayjumper]

There's a heavy assumption here that 1000's will end up in state schools and no net tax gain which is frankly nonsense, the fallout will be miniscule.

Wiki says "There are around 2,600 independent schools in the UK, which educate around 615,000 children". It's not a big % of that to get into thousands of kids needing state places.

Agreed the net tax gain will be miniscule.

Incidentally, 615k / 2.6k = average private school is only 237 pupils. Some of those schools must be absolutely tiny.