The Committee is holding a short inquiry on the potential for changes to the current council tax system in Scotland. The inquiry will involve taking evidence from stakeholders on the following key themes:

• Progress made by the Joint Working Group on Sources of Local Government Funding and Council Tax Reform since its first meeting in 2022

• Barriers to change in this area

• Ways in which barriers to change could be addressed

• Arguments for and against a revaluation of domestic properties being undertaken in Scotland

• What Scotland can learn from other countries, including for example, Wales, in terms of their approaches to revaluation and reform

• Potential costs of any revaluation exercise in Scotland and how it should be funded

• Assuming that council tax remains one of the main local taxes in Scotland, what other reforms to the tax could be explored?
  
  

The Commission on Local Tax Reform was an independent Commission created by the Scottish Government and co-chaired by the Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment and the President of COSLA. It brought together local and national politicians from different political parties and a range of expertise from across Scotland to look at ways of developing a fairer system of local taxation. It published its final report which you can view below:

Just Change: A New Approach to Local Taxation in December 2015.

The Committee has also agreed to consider an approach to an inquiry involving wider consideration of local taxation at a later date.