Tax burden that will penalise Scotland

THE scramble to the Left is well under way at Holyrood and what a dispiriting prospect it is for middle-income Scots.

Labour is the latest to put forward plans to increase taxes, with a penny on the 20p, 40p and 45p bands.

Kezia Dugdale‘s party hints the extra revenue could be channelled towards councils. Clearly, it has fallen for their shroud-waving talk of poverty.

Labour’s plan is a near carbon-copy of the Lib Dems – except they promise to spend the money on education, not local authorities.

At least the public know where they stand with Labour and the Lib Dems. Their tax plans look like electoral suicide (remember the SNP’s flop ‘penny for Scotland?’) but they are up-front about them. That stands in contrast with the SNP. It is uncharacteristically coy about its plans for tax under new powers accruing to Holyrood.

Given its mania for tax-and- spend, it seems highly likely it too will increase taxes but wants to keep the fact under the radar until the May election is safely out of the way.

After all, the one thing it has publicly committed to is the restoration of the 50p top income tax rate.

It fails to see that such a punitive rate would make Scotland a deeply unattractive place for business. Many of the highest earners the 50p rate is designed to soak would simply up sticks and go elsewhere – perhaps they might have to go no further than south of the Border.

So the SNP might well find its obsession with policies designed to appeal to baser elements who want to punish ‘the rich’ risks bringing in less revenue as the smart money moves out.

Only the Tories get it. Ruth Davidson’s position on tax is that it would be madness to try to saddle Scots with a heavier income tax burden that people in England or Wales or Northern Ireland.

Instead of rewarding hard work, higher taxes disincentivise it and that, in the end, drives investors away.

The grim truth is that success at the ballot box in May will see the SNP finally unmask its true tax policy.

And at that point we night as well erect a sign at the Border warning northbound traffic: ‘Caution! You are now entering a high-tax country.’