Three quarters of private schools in Greenwich receive large tax breaks because they are classed as charities.

Six of the eight private schools in the borough are classified as charities, meaning they will be granted more than £350,000 in rates relief for 2017/18.

That includes Colfe’s School, Eltham College, Blackheath Preparatory School, St Olave’s School, and Blackheath High School.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, Greenwich Council was asked to provide details of tax reliefs given to private schools.

Businesses in England can receive charitable rate relief of 80 per cent if a property is used for “charitable” purposes.

Thanks to the £363,236 tax relief, the eight private schools in Greenwich will pay a collective £179,370 this financial year in business rates. This equates to an average yearly tax bill per private school of £22,421.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) has recently revealed that, although private school fees do vary depending on where you live, the average school now costs £14,102 per year.

The fees from the parents of just two children per school will more than cover the cost of the yearly tax bills for private schools in Greenwich.

Mark Rigby, chief executive of CVS business rent and rates specialists, said: “It cannot be right that state schools pay normal business rates but 75 per cent of private schools in Greenwich using charitable status, receive 80 per cent discount.

“As the overall tax burden continues to rise, businesses- particularly SMEs- must have the confidence that fairness is at the heart of the tax system.”

Julie Robinson, Independent School Council (ISC) general secretary, said: “Many independent schools were given into charitable trusts by their founders and are essentially charities which operate as schools.

"Education is a charitable purpose in law, and these schools have to demonstrate public benefit to the Charity Commission through annual reports.

“The reduced business rates they benefit from saves them collectively about £150 million a year. This is a much smaller sum than the amount they spend on bursaries – £380 million on means-tested bursaries and scholarships, mostly for children from low income households – outreach to state schools and the amount they save the state from educating these children at the expense of the taxpayer; worth over £4 billion a year.

“At present there are 1,140 ISC schools in partnership with state schools and, in total, as many as 10,000 different partnership projects now exist with state schools.

"Independent and state schools enter into this work voluntarily and as equal partners, with approximately 175,000 state sector students a year benefitting.

"These partnerships include new free schools, and sharing of teachers, in particular in subjects where there is a shortage in state schools such as maths, physics and foreign languages, and of teaching, sport, drama, music and art facilities.”

Carol Chandler-Thompson, head for Blackheath High School, said: "We put our charitable commitment into practice through the education we offer, which is inherently charitable, and also through bursaries, through our GDST academies, through partnerships, through sharing our expertise, and of course, through preparing young women to realise their potential and make a meaningful difference in the world.

"Adding VAT to the fees we charge parents in our schools risks jeopardising our ability to engage in these ways.

"It would not make a meaningful contribution to the funding available for state schools and, by making independent education less affordable to some of the parents who are currently just about managing, would actually increase the burden on the taxpayer by increasing the pressure on state school places.

"Last year We allocated over £390,000 to bursaries, representing over 4.1% of our fee income, and many girls in our senior school and Sixth Forms receive financial assistance in the form of a bursary or scholarship - or both.

"We have a number of partnerships with local maintained schools sharing teaching expertise and offering our facilities and co-curricular programme more widely to local children.

"Recent examples include: a sport tournament for our own Year 4 as well as students from local primary schools; Maths activity days for local primary children; supporting a GCSE Astronomy course for students in our partner maintained schools and hosting and funding a children’s cantata performance St Alfege’s Church.

"It is a key tenet of our ethos to be outward-looking in our community and this is reflected in our community service programme. We are also very fortunate in the facilities we own and we offer these for hire to the local community at extremely competitive rates in order to share this good fortune more widely with our friends and neighbours."

Colfe’s School has declined to comment. Eltham College, Blackheath Preparatory School, and St Olave’s School did not respond to News Shopper’s requests for a comment.

News Shopper was unable to identify which private school was the sixth one that was listed as a charity.