State schools to receive £1.7bn boost from scrapping private school VAT break
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-12-29/state-schools-to-receive-17bn-boost-from-scrapping-private-school-vat-break?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1735464759
Posted by HadjiChippoSafri
19 Comments
Glad we can finally plug the £500-per-day-taxi-for-each-schoolchild funding gap.
Roughly £50k per school per year just from VAT money.
Not going to be world changing but welcome when schools are basically broke.
But I was told that this would have some random opposite effect reducing equity somehow.
I look forward to hearing how this is bad for average kids
Wont somebody think of poor Thomas Taylor-Thomas Or young Fergus Fitzroy-Ferguson
The rebalance is happening.
Any arguments against the rebalance are rich selfish people.
I don’t like Starmer btw but feeding the rich for 14 years has left us on our knees in the public sector.
Good! Glad to see Labour doing something right for once.
Did no one here notice that if schools are being chatted VAT, they can claim VAT back on building work already carried out ?
This figure is frankly a bad guess in a single report that the government has not bothered to test.
Frankly private schools should be scrapped. Finland has it right in this area imo. Make the toffs and rich kids go to a state school, they want to donate to education they can do it nationwide.
There’s no point to these institutions other than to give the old boys a place to network before working age.
Thank goodness.
Given the state of SEND provision being in the news lately, this money could be really helpful.
Maybe there is a reason why virtually no other country taxes education.
Greece tried it, and it backfired massively, with many private schools closing and tax revenue dropping.
New Zealand taxes education but also gives subsidies to families going private, so not comparable.
So increase pressure on state schools and then Labour wants to hire 6500 teachers as well. £1.7Bn isn’t enough. That’s, on average, 1 teacher per school if it is 50k per year.
And we dont know how many children are moving to state schools as a result of this policy, so this is a short-term money grab.
Then, creative accounting will reduce VAT burdens on schools anyways so even less money in the longer run
Brilliant. It’s closing these small loop holes that will make the difference to our society.
That’s simply a nonsense figure. For a start £1.7bn is assuming that private schools simply continue as they are but taxed. But they won’t. If they are taxed many will be forced to close. And a great deal more will be forced to simply scale back. So that taxable amount will inevitably massively drop.
I still think it should’ve been gradually phased in, 5% in year 1, 10% in year 2 etc. and most sensibly coming into force at the beginning of the school year
Sure, because that VAT revenue is going to be ring-fenced and funneled to schools. Do they think we are this fucking stupid? It’s insulting at this point.
This is propaganda. Labour are actually in panic mode internally because this policy is actually back firing.
I can see private schools firing all the teachers and hiring them back as VAT contractors.
I work in schools, always have.
This will actually help as in most cases, many schools have been running on a tightrope of funds.