Taxing times
I suspect contributors who criticised Derek Mackay’s taxation measures are old enough to remember levels of income tax which make today’s look benign, even in Scotland.
His measures are neither “pioneering” or “punitive”. It should also be remembered that income tax only accounts for some 27 percent of the total tax take. National insurance and VAT together account for nearly 40 per cent.
There’s nothing surprising that the Scottish Parliament, with a leftofcentre majority that stretches beyond the SNP, should make some use of its limited taxation powers, but it hardly amounts to robbing the rich in the context of total taxation which is still mostly determined at Westminster. Scotland has decided, quite rightly, that some of the most punitive and vindictive aspects of Conservative benefits policies, eg bedroom tax, should be mitigated at a current cost of £100m per year.
Other differences in spend compared to Westminster reflect the different policy choices in devolved areas which are unsurprising given the minority support for the Conservatives in Scotland.
Your contributors point the
finger at the SNP, but I suspect they resent the Scottish Parliament itself and the fact that it can, to a limited degree, prevent the rule of a Conservative minority in Scotland. ROBERT FARQUHARSON
Lee Crescent, Edinburgh
As the row rumbles on over Derek Mackay’s targeted taxgrabbing budget there is a simple truth the SNP have ignored. The middle class is more likely to send their children to private schooling or use private hospital facilities themselves.
In doing so, they are absolving the state from the responsibility of paying for this. The reason they do so is because the local school is deemed to not be adequate or the NHS waiting list is too long. The SNP should not be putting these people in this position in the first place, but they are. If the SNP now tax these same folk more heavily, many will no longer be able to afford either private schooling nor medicine. This will therefore add to the burden on the state to provide the extra funds to pay for this.
Derek Mackay has placed far too high a reliance on the middle class to simply shoulder the burden of his own failures whilst lowering taxes for others who are using exactly the same staterun services. (DR) GERALD EDWARDS
Broom Road, Glasgow