Our higher taxes are a price worth paying

WE in Scotland take the moral high ground in decrying the Tory austerity programme and their intransigence in dealing with the tax avoidance of large corporations like Facebook, Apple, Google and the like. We empathise with those on low wages who still rely in this day and age on food banks. We decry politicians for not giving the support to health, education and the police force. Yet many of those in Scotland earning over £50,000 selfishly despise the SNP Government for taking a stance in not passing on the tax cuts that the Westminster Government for some reason felt justified in implementing (“Anger at SNP as Scotland’s middle-class tax gap grows”, The Herald, December 13).

I’m a nationalist, though not at the moment an SNP lover, but I, one of those adversely affected by Mr Mackay’s Budget, praise his decision regarding the higher tax band not changing. People at the top end are not even going to be worse off this year as the bands are the same as last year so they will pay the same. In fact those earning less than the average wage will find themselves better off.

No one is seriously contemplating moving house and family 60 miles south to be under the control of this toxic Tory Government just to save a couple of thousand pounds a year. Some in Scotland will pay more than their English counterparts, but if we want a country more attuned to helping those worse off than ourselves, a country that spends more per head on education and health, a country that provides free university education and free prescriptions, then surely that is a price worth paying. I for one am wholeheartedly willing to do so. Tom Strang,

1 Gorse Drive, Barrhead.

EVEN ignoring the financial bonus of social entitlements in Scotland such as better childcare provision, free personal care, free prescriptions, a better free bus travel scheme and the major attraction of free student tuition, claims that highly-skilled earners will shift residency south is much exaggerated.

While “hard-pressed middle earners” on £50,000 a year face paying £1,544 more income tax next year in Scotland, if you factor in higher council tax and water bills in England which haven’t produced better services, the difference is more than halved.

Using Morpeth in Northumberland as an example, council tax Band E households pay £761.87 more each year compared to living in the Scottish Borders Council area; Band F pays £817.32 more in England, Band G pays £847.24 more and Band H pays £901.68 more. In addition, water bills are roughly £50 a year higher in England when compared to Scotland.

With less crime and less hatred towards foreigners, lower house prices coupled with better education and health services, most rational adults relish living in Scotland with a much better quality of life plus the possible economic bonus of an outward-looking independent Scotland in Europe.

Mary Thomas,

Watson Crescent, Edinburgh.

SO people in the higher income bracket (earning £50,000) will be £1,600 worse off. Really? My children have (nearly) finished five years of higher education – which they would have to pay for in England but not in Scotland. Savings: £90,000. Not to mention free prescriptions and other measures to make Scotland a slightly more equal society. I’ll happily pay up for that.

Trudy Duffy-wigman,

Devon View,

Crook of Devon, Fife.

DEREK Mackay has simply repeated last year’s Budget tax grab. Bereft of ideas, he has stuck to the same formula. The logic of taxing more heavily those who are already paying more tax is simply divisive which is closer to the real mantra of the SNP rather than the claimed “inclusive and just” society. No economy can thrive under such a counter-productive system.

Perhaps the Greens can do us all an unexpected favour and refuse to back this Budget while sticking to their declared policy of wanting draconian changes to the current council tax and really set the tax-raising cat amongst the pigeons; unless Mr Mackay has joined the band of politicians that Nicola Sturgeon claims are displaying “pathetic cowardice” and gives in to the Greens’ unreasonable demands to get his Budget passed.

Dr Gerald Edwards,

Broom Road, Glasgow.

DEREK Mackay freezes the higher rate tax threshold so as to pay for worthy causes in the devolved portfolio. So far, so virtuous. Yet there is another item that catches the eye. The Scottish Government’s “external affairs” budget is to rise from £15.8 million in 2017/18 to £17.3m in 2018/19 and to a whopping £24m in 2019/20. My question is: why? The Scottish Government has no locus in foreign policy or international affairs. I understand that Nicola Sturgeon likes to parade on the world stage, if she can, and that the SNP likes to pretend that it is running an independent country and should therefore have the accompanying trappings.

Scotland is a part of the UK, which conducts foreign policy and international relations for the country as a whole, as a reserved matter. The Scottish budget is intended for matters pertaining to the devolved administration in Edinburgh. I deeply resent having my tax liability raised so that the devolved government can indulge its pretensions to a role it is not entitled to exercise.

Jill Stephenson,

Glenlockhart Valley,

Edinburgh.