Derek Mackay’s tax increasing Scottish Budget steers a sensible middle line

When one looks at the fallout from the Draft Scottish Budget I am reminded of the line in the Stealers Wheel hit, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.”

While the Conservatives cry crocodile tears about a socalled ‘Nat Tax’, Labour say the government hasn’t gone far enough. This puts the SNP neatly stuck in the middle of the two. Not a bad place to be, dare I say.

Modestly increasing taxes for higher earners but also cutting them for the very low- est, delivering a more progressive tax system, will be welcomed by most. Indeed, polling has shown that a significant majority of Scots support the idea of gradual increases in tax, with higher earners paying more tax and lower earners paying the same or less tax than they currently do.

No one earning less than £33,000 a year will pay any more as a result of the Budget. That’s 1.8 million people, amounting to 70% of taxpayers, while 1.4 million Scottish taxpayers earning less than £26,000 will pay less than if they had lived elsewhere in the UK.

Overall, these tax changes will raise £164m, allowing the Scottish Government to ‘reverse’ real-terms cuts to Scotland’s resource budget.

Critics have often decried the lack of use of fiscal powers afforded to the Scottish Government, its cautious approach in delivering a ‘progressive’ agenda. Now we have significant divergence with the rest of the UK.

Of course, what people say to pollsters about paying more tax and what they do in practice can be two different matters. This is about to be put to the test.

ALEX ORR

Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh

The SNP budget has been presented as progressive as it makes high and middle earners pay more tax, while reducing tax on low earners.

However, you really have to question if the tax changes make low earners better off at all.

The £20 per year that many low earners will save is not going to transform anyone’s finances. It is trivial compared with the raising of the personal allowance by the UK government between 2014 and the present which saves those same people around £75 per year.

The clobbering that local councils are continuing to get from the Scottish Government will hit the less well off disproportionately, and more than offset any tiny savings in tax.

It is the low paid who depend most on councils both for the services they provide and for employment.

The budget is the worst of both worlds for Scotland. The tax increases will raise little money, depress economic growth ( and the tax take), and dissuade skilled people from coming to work in Scotland,while the trivial tax savings for the low paid is nullified by council cuts. This is hardly progressive.

KEITH SHORTREED

Methlick, Aberdeenshire