Charging VAT on private school fees

What makes it reputable?

It matters if the argument is that a 20% increase will, in the long term, result in a significant reduction in students going to private school. It isn't simply a question of there being an exodus from private schools "of some size", it's whether the exodus will be large enough to undermine the financial benefits of introducing VAT. We know that fees have exploded over the last decade (far above a 20% increase in real terms) yet parents are still willing to send their children to private school. To me this says that private school fees are not at an "equilibirum price" and that parents can, in general, afford a lot more than they are being charged.

I've checked both papers, the IFS 3%-7% estimate is based on a combination of surveys, historical data (from the UK and the US) and modelling. The Adam Smith Institute's 10%-15% estimates are seemingly plucked out of thin air, so I see no reason to take it at face value.

Your financial literacy is somewhat lacking. The student loan repayment system already functions just like an effective tax. The reforms introduced under Cameron means that those of us who are aspirational, hard working and contribute sustainably to the economy will end up paying back more than we borrowed.
It is a far greater example of vindictiveness and anti-aspiration than removing a tax break. But we should expect no less from the Conservative Party and their voters. They are after all responsible for the highest tax burden since the 50s and have overseen more than a decade of economic decline that we are all paying the price for.
So maybe direct your rage towards them rather than clutching your pearls over something relatively minor.

I’d be surprised if they actually want to eliminate private education entirely. They’re educated people (privately educated, in fact), so they should understand perfectly well that the existence of private schools is of massive benefit to the public purse.
More likely, it was just intended as a populist policy designed to win over voters by scapegoating the nebulous “rich” for paying for something that they would like to have, but can’t afford. Hence, “politics of envy”.
And it seems to have worked. I’ve seen no shortage of comments like “my heart bleeds” and “maybe they should cancel their Netflix subscriptions” from people who support this policy. It seems they’re just glad to get one over on private school children, without thinking or caring much about how they themselves (or the education system / economy more broadly) will be affected by it.

The fact that it relies on the credibility of its analyses to be able to do business and continue to exist, and yet it one of the UK’s top 10 accounting firms by revenue.
The fact that “fees have exploded over the last decade” has little to do with anything. It doesn’t prove that fees were never at an equilibrium price, it is a much stronger indication that the equilibrium price has increased since then. It makes very little sense to assume that private businesses, for no good reason, are persistently charging significantly less than they needs to in order to be able to sell all of their available product.
You originally said “it seems unlikely that there will be a long term exodus from private schools”. If you’re now changing to saying that the exodus won’t be significant enough to outweigh the revenues from VAT (which is far from unanimously accepted and only true in the most optimistic of estimates), I’d reiterate my earlier point: even in the best case scenario where this policy does end up raising an extra billion or so as the government hopes, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the best way to raise that money. I’ve already listed other harms caused by this policy besides the impact to the public purse, which could be avoided by targeting the tax rises differently.
The IFS estimate of 3-7% is based on data that the IFS has itself admitted is “quite thin”, “relatively old” and sparse”. So I think it’s perfectly fair of the Adam Smith institute to warn about the imprudence of taking the most optimistic of estimates on the basis of such data as as the most likely or inevitable scenario.

How are student loans in any way analogous to a flat 20% tax on fees?
Ask every single person who has ever ever paid school fees if they would rather have a loan with a low repayment rate, means tested for repayment and written off after 30 years....or VAT.
Socialists destroy out of jealousy and hate.

How are student loans in any way analogous to a flat 20% tax on fees?
Ask every single person who has ever ever paid school fees if they would rather have a loan with a low repayment rate, means tested for repayment and written off after 30 years....or VAT.
Socialists destroy out of jealousy and hate.

There are some who will no doubt have to pull their kids but most will suck it up. FWIW, at my son's school, they have had the largest intake of year 7 students they've ever had and this against a background where parents know Labour have made this one of their key policies to implement immediately.
From a personal perspective, I'm glad I only have to find two years of VAT 😂. He's going back to grammar for A levels and the advantage of applying to uni from a "state" school!

Does it rely on the credibility of analyses like the one it claims to have done? If it wanted to demonstrate credibility then they should share both their findings and their workings which, seemingly, they haven't done. They have plenty of incentives to share the findings of a poor analysis (or, even worse, made up results) if they aren't going to have those findings held up to scrutiny.

It doesn't prove that the fees weren't at "equilibrium price", but nor have you proved that they were. Fundamentally the question boils down to 'Are private school parents willing, or able, to pay for fees that rise by 20%?'. To me the evidence points towards "yes".

I've not changed my stance with respect to private school enrollment. I'm happy to believe that some parents, somewhere, will pull their children out of private school because they can not afford the added 20%. What I don't believe is that these cases will be large enough to completely undermine the benefit of introducing the tax. As for other ways of raising the tax, these all come with their own problems which you have not weighed against the problems of VAT.

Data being "quite thin", "relatively old" and "sparce" does not make an estimate "optimistic". If anything the IFS could have chosen a lower estimate if they wanted to (data for which exists). The Adam Smith Institute have essentially pulled the 10% figure out of their ****, for all intents and purposes they may have said 'We don't like that the VAT would bring a net benefit with your figures, so we've artificially inflated them to give us a conclusion which we prefer.'.

The argument that demand for private school tuition may fall due to price increases is certainly possible and indeed there are some signs to that private schools are cutting back on partial scholarships for those of lesser means so the non-Old Boys private schools are clearly concerned.
With that said, while I agree with T that this policy is just the mark of a greedy state and the politics of envy (we should be expanding private school access for the children of the working poor), I actually doubt that most private schools will suffer a financial impact due to international demand for a British private education. People are perhaps unaware of just how many Indians and Chinese want their children educated here and are willing to pay.
In the long run then the people that lose will be native children, the children of the middle class who no longer get as big a scholarship ECT.. and are forced to endure a state education in which they are treated as C grade factories (or whatever the number is now).

This is nonsense - over 90% of state schols are good or outstanding - my state school outperforms many fee-paying schools. When Ofsted inspect fee-paying schools they quite often do badly ...
https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/search?q=&location=&radius=&level_1_types=1&level_2_types=2&level_3_types=11&latest_report_date_start=&latest_report_date_end=&rating%5B%5D=4&status%5B%5D=1

All the more reason not to implement the VAT...

No it isn't - they should all be shut down if they are inadequate - state school have to join a MAT if they are inadequate.
Fee paying schools are a huge barrier to equality.

Independent schools save the government billions of pounds every year and prevent the quality of state education dropping even further. Reducing the quality of education for everyone is not the way to maintain a sustainable society.
Regardless, universities consider contextual offers and judge performances in the context of a school so the impact on students who received a (potentially) worse secondary education is limited.

So explain why inadequate fee-paying schools should not be forced to close.
Fee-paying school don't save the country anything - they try to poach teachers from the state sector by offering bribes - yes I've been approached multiple times. They cause a lot of the problems like creaming off bright children ...
If politicians had to use state schools the funding would soon increase.

Would you prefer another 600000 kids flowing into the state school system? Or 5bn pounds of spending into educating all independent students?
And may I ask why creaming off bright children is a problem? Surely bright children should go to independent schools where they would more easily be able to thrive amongst other students of a higher academic background?
Wdym by the last point?

I’d personally prefer that the 5bn of spending was spent into state schools (prioritise the ones that need this money, don’t prioritise state schools such as Brampton Manor, St Olave’s, Henrietta Barnett, Queen’s Elizabeth etc).

The 5bn I'm referring to would be required to educate 600000 private school students. This isn't currently available to the government, of course.

Ultimately, nobody can “prove” anything here. Predicting the future of the economy is never going to be an exact science, and it will only be known in retrospect. It’s a case of what is the most likely outcome based on the available evidence.
In order to conclude with any surety that 20% VAT can be added to private school fees with little to no migration from private school to state, you essentially need the following things to be true:

Which is more likely: the list above, or the idea that for a class of 20 children, it’s a reasonable concern that 2 or 3 of them won’t have an extra £3-4k a year to spare? To me, the latter is uncontroversial. The former speaks for itself.