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Going back to this, aren't all school fees paid up front? You need to pay for the term for them to let your child back so it's just a matter of scale. I doubt a government would win this or likely try. It's the visual and the long term change they are after.
Grumpy_Git-
Going back to this, aren't all school fees paid up front? You need to pay for the term for them to let your child back so it's just a matter of scale.
No because they are only fixed for the year. It's likely that fees will go up by an unspecified amount in future years.
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Going back to this, aren't all school fees paid up front?
In most instances people are only paying up to ~9 months ahead, e.g. it's August and they're paying for the next school year which starts a month later, or you pay termly and it's March and you need to pay for the summer term that starts in April.
That's quite different from paying for 2/3/4/5/etc years in advance.
You need to pay for the term for them to let your child back so it's just a matter of scale.
Not really, because the tax position could change such that different years are treated differently, but if you're paying for the current/upcoming year (as in the example above) the tax situation is not expected to change during that year.
Paying in advance for schools is a tricky thing as the school has no idea how it may need to raise prices in the future. Whilst the schools like some extra capital early on they can get themselves into trouble by spending it. Plenty of private schools have financial issues if they're not run properly (and that was before Covid).
jellybaby
Greenbank
That's kind of my point, we're kind of saying the same thing. The "What happens if the law is changed and VAT becomes chargeable on school fees?" section outlines the near future but not the longer term.
What it doesn't say is that the result of the Government trying to change the "time of supply" rules could be a series of long drawn out legal challenges (there is related precedent that such retrospective tax applications are incompatible with the human rights act). But if it does go to court:
Neither of these are good for the Government.
So what most people in this situation will do is pay in advance and hedge the VAT money elsewhere. If it ends up being due at some point it can be paid, if it ends up not being due then it's another bonus for Tarquin's/Tilly's trust fund.