Letter: Why were private schools charities in the first place?

Wayne Kitcat (“Forget fees, a donation can finesse Labour’s VAT plan”, Letters, June 3) suggests that if Labour imposes VAT on school fees, parents could make “donations” to schools with charitable status; the schools could then claim Gift Aid on the donations.

This would of course be at the expense of the general body of taxpayers, most of whom have no hope of being able to afford to send their children to such schools.

Unfortunately for this proposal, Gift Aid is not available on payments made to charities where the “donors” receive significant benefits in return. It does however raise the question of why corporate entities whose main objective is educating the children of the well-off have charitable status at all — again, this comes at a cost to the general body of taxpayers.

David Linnell
Loughton, Essex, UK