The SNP’s progressive taxation shows things are better when Scotland makes its own decisions
by Cast you mind back to last December when the Scottish Government announced its budget for the year ahead and increased income tax for higher earners? This was not new. It had already happened in previous years.
Naturally the Tories did their usual scaremongering about higher taxes for the better off saying it would discourage people moving Scotland. But, astonishingly, even Labour joined in with Labour’s Ian Murray claiming people would move to London – a place now reported to be more expensive to live in than Monte Carlo!
Well, new research just published shows a different picture. The fact is that thousands more taxpayers have moved to Scotland than left each year in the period after income tax rates were put up in Scotland the Border. And who has done this research? His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs – the HMRC. The UK government’s own tax collecting agency.
According to their research 4,200 more taxpayers moved to Scotland than left each year with more higher and top rate taxpayers moving to Scotland than leaving – £200 million in extra taxable income was brought into Scotland in 2021-22.This research shows that the Westminster parties in Scotland were irresponsible when they scaremongered about Scotland’s progressive tax system. They were effectively encouraging people in Scotland to move into a financial nightmare.
The fact is Scotland is an attractive place to move to; a better place to live and work because of the decisions the SNP government has made. Things are better in Scotland when it makes its own decisions. Just imagine how much better things would be if Scotland could make all of the decisions that affect it, instead of those Westminster parties who have been proven wrong?
Produced by the SNP’s News, Research and Rebuttal team.