Samuel Mather-Holgate, independent financial adviser at Mather and Murray Financial, says Labour's plan is a sensible proposal to increase taxes on those with the broadest shoulders to fund services for those less fortunate.
He adds: "The majority of parents who send their children to private schools will not have a problem arranging their finances to fund VAT on the fees.
"Even the Tories haven’t kicked back on this plan, because they know it’s popular with the public and a progressive policy that makes sense in a country that needs to fill the tax gap from multiple sources."
Meanwhile, Riz Malik, independent financial adviser at R3 Wealth, argues that it is not only the wealthy who send their children to private schools.
He adds: "Many parents make significant sacrifices in their own lives to be able to afford it. A common sense approach would be to gradually phase in any such increase if they were determined it would solve a problem that many do not think exists.
"The implication to those with more than one child at school could be an issue; putting more stress on state schools with limited resources."
But Julia Rosenbloom, tax partner at Shakespeare Martineau, notes that introducing a phased increase in VAT could introduce tax complications.
She says it also remains to be seen whether Labour's plans raise as much revenue as estimated.
Rosenbloom adds: "One of the potential implications of the policy could be that some people will withdraw their children from private school. They will then obviously have to be educated in the state system, which will put more pressure into the state system and will add extra cost into that. So it remains to be seen whether it raises as much revenue as they think.
"Although there will be extra VAT captured from the school fee, the school will be able to claim back VAT somewhere else. In other words, while the fees put VAT money into the coffers the school takes some of it back.
"What the schools might do is reduce the fees for the parents, because [their] cost base has reduced, where they are claiming back VAT they have incurred on things. If they do, there might be a little bit of a relief for the parents."
Labour has published its manifesto but it includes no additional detail on its plan for the 20 per cent VAT on private school fees. The devil will indeed be in the detail.
Ima Jackson-Obot is deputy features editor of FT Adviser
