V.A.T, in school fees

I'm aware of that!! What point are you trying to make? I doubt if many (if any) tutors, apart from the big agencies, have a turnover anywhere near the VAT threshold?

Vat is a tax

It is the law that anyone offering tuition should be registered with HMRC. Even if they don't earn enough to pay income tax, they still have to be registered. I don't understand why there should be any distinction between state school and independent school teachers. Many tutors are retired or taking a career break to bring up a family, so they're neither state nor independent school teachers.

I'm not registered for VAT, because I don't earn anywhere near enough and it's unlikely that I ever will.

I have a pack I give to parents when I start tutoring, which includes copies of my certificates and DBS certificate.

I expect there are tutors who aren't registered or even qualified, but that's up to parents to check. I know there are some who try to get tutoring on the cheap and aren't too bothered about qualifications. Sometimes university students do tutoring for extra money, which is common in other countries.

I know there have been calls for all tutors to be registered, as childminders are. It sounds like a good idea, but I have reservations. Firstly, I doubt if unregistered tutoring can be stopped. How is anybody going to know about the neighbour taking a few pounds for doing a favour?

Secondly, the people behind the calls for registration are a couple of the big players in the private tutoring business, who want to push out independent tutors. Typically, they charge about double my fee and don't actually do the tutoring themselves. Their main selling point is that they've checked tutors' credentials, but any parent could do that. I don't know how much registration fees would be, but a figure of about £250pa was being thrown around. For any teacher only doing a couple of hours tuition a week, that's a high percentage of profit. Even for me, I would have to increase my fees to cover the loss.

This has nothing to do with paying tax. As with all self-employed, there are probably those who do cash in hand work. To be honest, I don't really understand the point of raising the issue in this context.

Who on earth said that Daniel Blake was meant to be a representation of all unemployed people anymore than Cathy was a representation of all homeless families with children? What it was was a well researched dramatisation of the experiences that some people have of our benefit system. It tackled particularly the myth that all unemployed people are idle shirkers who milk the system and have brought it on themselves. I think with DB what resonated particularly with many of us with a heart was that DB was an older man, who had worked and paid into the system for decades and the when he needed the system to be there for him through no fault of his own, it failed him heartbreakingly.

Why on earth should state school teachers giving private lessons have to be registered just so they don't avoid paying tax? What are independent school teachers? Or maybe they can be trusted to pay their tax? There's only one reason for anyone to be registered as a private tutor and that's the safeguarding of children. As has been said, all teachers at all legitimate schools are DBS checked so it's just those not employed at a school who need a DBS check. What happens with people giving music lessons in their own homes - does anyone know?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/06/the-guardian-view-on-labours-primaries-plan-top-marks

"At their weekly confrontation across the dispatch box, the prime minister has repeatedly floundered in the face of Jeremy Corbyn’s challenge on cuts to school budgets. It has been his most successful line of attack, and her reluctance to answer both in the Commons, and at her press conference on Wednesday shows that she is aware of how weak the government’s position is. Strikingly, there are rumours that Tory policy wonks are thinking along the same lines as Labour. This is a plan that is unequivocal in its clarity, in an area where the government is really struggling. It is a copybook exercise from the manual of effective opposition."

What are the odds on it being in the Queen's Speech?

If anybody takes payment for work and does not declare it to HMRC, they are breaking the law and can be fined, whether private tutors, plumbers, painter and decorators or whatever.

There doesn't need to be separate registration, apart from the fact that they should have DBS checks. If they are teaching as well as giving private tuition, they will have had those checks.

Thanks Annie I know you will think I am being sarcastic but I really appreciate the fact that we have some thoughts we share and you were big enough to post about it. Wish there was a way of posting a peace sign.

Most private tutors are self-employed and should register with HMRC as any other self-employed person.
If they don't they can be fined.
I am sure daphne knows more about this.

I agree Trisher, it should be compulsory

If they are not declaring the income they are breaking the law anyway Anniebach. Registration of all private tutors (many are not teachers) is a good thing and there is a voluntary scheme at the moment, making it compulsory would be good.

www.theguardian.com/global/2017/apr/09/focus-brexit-obliterates-social-policy-agenda

So it should be law that state school teachers who do private tutoring should be registered so they can be checked for paying tax on the fees they charge ,

Agreed, trisher. I had some work done, and the plumber insisted on telling me the price before VAT. That makes not a bit of difference to me or to most people.
A business is a business. Private schools are run as businesses, and should be charged VAT. Parents are most definitely paying for extra value when sending children to private schools.

The events are widespread and typical Fitzy54 I don't know where you live but I could take you to estates where children are underfed and where families are suffering.
There is a stigma to free school meals, I remember taking children on school trips, packed lunches were provided for those entitled to free meals but they invariably brought a lunch box so they were the same as the others. The heartbreaking thing was that you knew the family couldn't really afford to do this.
I sometimes struggle to pay the VAT when I have work done on my house. It would be much easier for me if it wasn't charged, but that isn't a legitimate reason to stop charging it. I don't see why school fees are any different.

I was surprised Thornberry freely admitted she is not a pacifist and didn't hold back on Livingston either and her experiences of free school meals in her school days. They were at one time so cruel but with these electronic card things I hope this can't happen, I still don't agree with free meals for all

I agree Fitzy, a fictional film of the experiences of one man in one town cannot be said to represent every unemployed person in every benefit office in the country,

I don't think anyone is relying on I, Daniel Blake to inform their opinions of the way this government is treating children and families on benefits.
However, I, Daniel Blake did resonate with lots of people who care about what the government is doing.

Did anyone watch Emily Thornberry on Andrew Marr saying she supports the idea, being a product of free school meals herself, and having to queue up with a different coloured ticket?

The problem is that the implication is that the events are widespread and typical. You can't rely on I Daniel Blake as reliable evidence of that.

Daniel Blake was a fictional character, the events were not.

To be honest I felt like I had been through a wringer after I watched it daphnedill . Sorry for going slightly off topic here, but I don't think people understand how bad things can get. Daniel (and many like him) are victims of a failed system that allows some people to make living on benefits a lifestyle choice when they know their way around the system and others, like Daniel are badly let down. I couldn't bear the scenes where he was trying to help the newly arrived Katie and her small children to get their rightful benefits only to be thrown out of the office by the over zealous manager and his security man.

It made it all the more harrowing seeing some familiar land marks in and around Newcastle city centre. I would highly recommend this film but it does not make easy viewing.

It's getting harder on benefits *daphnedil" - freeze in annual rise (unlike the retirement pension which has gone up a few quid over the last 3 years) prices in shops rising, more stringent signing on requirements, and so on.
86% of the impact of benefit cuts has fallen on women.
And this week's special - regarding third and subsequent children (it applies to all new claims for in and out of work benefit if I understand correctly) - so if your partner walks out leaving you with 4 kids, and you have to make a claim you won't get any allowance made for kids 3 an 4. Shocking policy that will increase child poverty.
As

Jen nobody could seriously argue that giving all school children a free meal would be a bad thing. But would the cost justify the benefit given all the other things tax money could be directed at, particularly when targeted at those who really need help rather than everybody, most of whom don't? And while there is no doubt a case for charging VAT on private school fees, the effect will be to make private education even more exclusively available to the very wealthy, and there would be an inevitable increase in the cost of state education if a significant number transferred to state schools. And why on earth link the two other than as a gimmicky soundbite? There is some merit in both ideas but I would want to see much more detailed, and preferably independent, analysis of the likely effect before they got my vote.

"The extension of free meals to all primary school pupils would certainly boost attempts to tackle poverty, lifting thousands of children above the breadline, providing financial respite for hard-pressed parents and removing the social stigma endured by many pupils who qualify already.

An estimated 1.2 million children in England living below the poverty line missed out on free school meals in 2013, according to research by the Children’s Society. Half of these were simply not entitled to support under eligibility rules that restricted entitlement to pupils whose parents were unemployed or earning less than £16,200.

The impact of this eligibility “cliff edge” can be dramatic: while 70% of children on free school meals ate a school canteen lunch regularly, take-up slumps to 20% among the children of poorer parents who are in work, suggesting many parents struggle to meet the £450 annual cost for each child."

From the Guardian.

"When the School Food Plan commissioned by Michael Gove received the coalition government’s backing in 2013, we hoped that the acknowledgement given to the education and health benefits of free school meals would be met with sustained positive action. It is worth remembering that the School Plan relied on evidence from the Labour pilots introduced by former education secretary Ed Balls."

Not Gove's idea. The pilots were done by Labour.

labourlist.org/2017/04/corbyns-free-schools-meals-plan-is-a-truly-labour-policy-that-will-help-pupils-in-mind-and-body/