A dire tax warning the SNP can’t ignore

AS the economy hovers on the edge of recession, four high-ranking business chiefs have delivered a stark warning to Nicola Sturgeon.

In unequivocal terms, they condemn planned tax hikes for workers earning as little as £24,000 – a move that will turn hardworking Scots into ‘cash cows’.

Their letter punctures in spectacular style the Holyrood bubble that has enveloped the supposed ‘conversation’ about tax reform. The authors, including former CBI Scotland chairman Sir Iain McMillan and ex-Scottish Enterprise boss Jack Perry, are not politically motivated.

Instead, based on long years of experience, they have produced a damning critique of the proposed tax increases.

Perhaps their most striking conclusion is that the tax raid will make Scotland deeply unattractive for the skilled workers our failing public services so desperately need.

Sir Iain and his co-authors rightly point out that the SNP has already ‘sent out a signal that Scotland will become a higher taxed place than the rest of the UK’.

Last year, Finance Secretary Derek Mackay – who ludicrously branded higher rate taxpayers ‘rich’ – froze the threshold for the 40p tax rate at £43,000, despite it rising to £45,000 south of the Border. This was only a curtain-raiser for the looming tax bombshell, which could see people earning above £24,000 paying a new 21p rate.

Those earning £50,000 would pay up to £260 more, while a higher earner on £90,000 faces handing over an additional £810.

The letter concedes that tax hikes could bolster public services ‘in the short term’. But it adds ‘there is considerable evidence to show that in the longer term, government revenues could actually decline due to reduced economic growth’.

This is a salutary economics lesson, not from politicians but from true experts with impeccable credentials – and one that Miss Sturgeon simply cannot ignore.