A levy too far

HIGH street retailers and those using an online/out-of-town model are not on a level playing field.

Those operating bricks-and-mortar shops are struggling, while the online giants make fortunes.

Into this complex arena came the SNP, with plans for an ‘Amazon tax’.

But businesses leaders raised the spectre of an avaricious SNP, which doesn’t grasp how business works, wreaking havoc.

Unusually, the SNP – normally so dogmatic – has shelved its plans, preferring instead to let the UK Government apply a UK-wide digital service tax.

How telling that the SNP, so inept in so many areas, is prepared to admit Westminster is better at making pan-British decisions over money.

Significant, too, that Finance Secretary Derek Mackay seems wary of taking on big business but looks set to hammer hardworking Scots in his Budget on Wednesday.