Demand for freeze on council tax to be scrapped

Thethink tank that favours far greater financial powers for Holyrood will this week call for a completely new taxation regime for local authorities and an end to the centrally dictated council tax freeze.

Reform Scotland, an independent, non-party body, has come up with an alternative to the council tax, arguing that, like business rates, this method of local taxation has ceased to be locally accountable.

Tomorrow it will publish Renewing Local Government, which will seek to bring to local authorities the same arguments it has been making in relation to the Scottish Government – that each level of government should, as far as possible, be responsible for raising the money that it spends.

The think tank argues that council tax, one of Scotland’s only two local taxes along with business tax, has effectively been nationalised in recent years as a result of the Scottish Government’s council tax freeze.

It wants this policy to be abandoned.

It says the proposal means local authorities, responding to local needs, could decide to adopt a property tax, a land value tax, an income tax, a consumption tax or a basket containing a number of different local taxes.

Ben Thomson of Reform Scotland said: “No-one likes paying taxes. However, what people really dislike more is seeing their money spent inefficiently and with little accountability.

“If more taxes were the responsibility of local counci l s, then they would become more accountable to the local communities they serve.”