V.A.T, in school fees

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.

I agree Trisher, it should be compulsory

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

Vat is a tax

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?

If people on benefits are punished for earning a bit extra to survive the affluent are to be taxed for sending their children to private schools then those in the middle should pay any tax due on private tuition . Too much of this attacking the poor and affluent but ignoring those in the middle.

They do, Annie. I don't understand what you are getting at here.
Daphne, do you pay all the tax you should?

What's the VAT registration level now, daphne?
£75,000? £80,000?
That's a big turnover for a self employed tutor.

They do pay any tax due!! I pay VAT on most of the materials I buy, such as DVDs, paper, ink cartridges, fuel etc and factor my costs into the fees I charge. I can't remember the threshold for paying VAT, but it's something like £85,000 turnover and I can't imagine any tutor earns anything like that.

The parents of some of my students are extremely wealthy. Some of them already send their children to independent schools - some don't and have made a conscious decision to save on school fees and employ tutors on an 'ad hoc' basis. In any case, the state schools in this area are better than any of the indies. I obviously don't discuss parental income, but I would imagine most of my students live in households with an income well over £50,000 a year, which puts them in the 10% highest earners in the country.

I don't know why you assume that only those in the middle employ private tutors - most of them can't afford it. I've been doing tuition for four years and it certainly isn't my experience that it's mainly middle income families. I've had a couple of students whose parents have probably had to make sacrifices to pay for tuition, but they're the exception. I'd love to be able to give discounts to poorer families, but unfortunately I'm poorer than most of them and I have to pay my own bills.

I really think you're splitting hairs here and I don't really understand the point.

X post dj. I'm not sure. I know I don't earn anything like that, so I don't bother checking.

It's almost impossible for a tutor to have a turnover of more than about £10k a year.

Most students want lessons between 4pm and 7pm, so the number of hours a tutor can work are restricted. I nearly always travel to my students and don't charge for travelling time, so the absolute maximum number of students I can teach in a week is 15. Not only that, but students don't usually want lessons during school holidays or just before Christmas holidays, so I rarely have work for more than 38 weeks a year. I charge the maximum the market will stand, but many tutors charge less.

dj I'm hardly likely to admit that I avoid/evade tax , but yes, I do.

Firstly, I'm an honest person and despise tax evasion. Secondly, I've had enough stress in my life and would be constantly worried that I'd be caught out, if I didn't declare everything.

Many teachers also take on private tutoring , these I am speaking of .

If they do not pay tax on their earnings, they will be fined if caught.
Like daphne says, it's not worth the worry.

Architects have the same thing if they do private work, as do any other professions.

Surely all tax dodging should be treated the same not dismiss one group as not worth the worry. Benefit claimants who earn a bit on the re width the worry to many

£83,000 pa daphnedill is the VAT threshold apparently.
Can you not get VAT refund on the materials or buy them VAT free?

I would have said we were definitely 'middle' income and I paid for private tuition for some subjects for the DC because the school was like the curate's egg - it depended entirely on which teachers your DC ended up with, some brilliant, some should have been retired or seemed to be teaching at the comprehensive (very poorly) just to afford the fees for their own offspring to be educated privately. It was not just the parents who thought some of the teachers were worse than useless - some of the other teachers thought so too.
We could not have afforded private school fees so did the best we could.

You can volunteer to be vat registered at any income whatsoever, although there is a level of turnover where you have no choice. If you buy a lot of materials/equipment etc. you can voluntarily vat register and claim the vat back but then of course you have to pay he vat out on income too.

Thanks gillybob. I didn't know that and will check it out.

Jalima May was being very clever when she mentioned JAMs, because so many people think that they are 'middle income' or JAMs. The facts tell a different story and many people think they're worse off compared to others than they actually are. I'm maybe assuming something here, but I guess you no longer have a mortgage or, at least, it's not so high as many younger people have.

The median salary in the UK is about £26,000. Net pay is obviously much lower and total income will depend on a number of factors, such receipt of tax credits or any other benefits or income from savings and payments such as pensions, NICs, income tax, student loan repayments, etc. As a result it's not possible to be accurate about net income. However, after housing costs it's reckoned to be about £23,000 per household and it depends on the calculation method.

Assuming that the above figure is accurate, there are even further variables, such as travel to work, etc. Most people round here pay about £5,000pa on commuting costs.

"Middle disposable income* is somewhere in the £20k region, so half of all households have income below that figure. The spread above £20k is very big. Having a disposable income of over £30k places a household in the top quartile, so my understanding of "middle income" is from about £16k to about £25k. I really doubt that the parents of most of my students have an income that low.

Anyway, I thought that the elderly denied being "well off". How come they can afford to pay for tuition, while their children can't?

I still don't see the point of this anyway, although it's a good argument against hypothecated tax, because people resort to "It's not fair - he's getting more than I do and doesn't deserve it" squabbles.

Annie, I wasn't saying it wasn't worth collecting the tax on the group like daphne.
I was saying, as she said, that it wasn't worth the worry for her, so she makes sure she pays it properly.

I still do self-assessment tax returns from when I had a business. That's why I often end up owing them 50p or £1.20.
Theor system does not allow you to input pence, but it charges you pence when it adds up. Very annoying.

How come you do not know about VAT when you do your brother's accounts?