Various organizations have filed a complaint with the European Commission against the Ministry of Finance for the interpretation made by the Directorate General of Taxation of the VAT Law, which obliges to collect this tax on educational activities that are exempt.
Since last November, 10% VAT will be applied to all school canteen services, morning classrooms, urban camps, colonies and extracurricular activities provided by different leisure and leisure companies (if they are aimed at children under six years) or 21%, depending on the case.
The application of VAT entails the increase in educational services or the loss of quality. The continuity of many companies in the sector is also jeopardized.
Trade unions, leisure business organizations, and the Confederation of fathers and mothers of students (CEAPA), consider that 'the effects of such interpretation can be devastating for family economies'. The main reason is the cost of services of first necessity.
Although it would also affect the balance and viability of an economic sector that creates employment in the strips of active population most punished by unemployment (young and middle-aged women).
The president of CEAPA, Jesús Sánchez, has stressed that the main harmed will be the more than three million children who attend school canteens in public school and concerted in Spain, which will have fewer monitors and can see how services are cut.
The families would be harmed because the companies would have to increase the prices of the dining room or, on the contrary, lower their quality.
In addition to the harmful effects on the economy, the interpretation of the Treasury implies implicitly, the denial of the educational nature of services that have ceased to be an alternative option, to become a family necessity of the utmost importance. It constitutes, therefore, a step back in the recognition of education as an inalienable social right.
For Julio Serrano (of the CCOO Teaching Federation), what this measure will mean will be that dining rooms and extracurricular activities lose their 'educational character' and return to their former role as child custodian.
A consultation of three years ago by FOESC (leisure companies), to the General Directorate of Taxes, intended to finally determine that the Exemption is applicable to educational services intended for education of children and youth, managed by the companies in the affected sector.
However, in the opinion of professionals in the sector, the Government's response contradicts both the VAT law and the European Directive of reference.
Now the educational community raises its voice and asks the European authorities to guarantee compliance in Spain with the European Directive that establishes the VAT exemption in the educational services of Children and Youth, preserving the character of social law that education implies.
