The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
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Displaying 1250 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2023
Ross Greer
I have a final question that relates to various members’ questions about behaviour change and tax policy. There have been relatively significant changes in tax policy, such as the 2018 changes to income tax and the changes to council tax—I think that those were in the same year, or it might have been the year before. Was there a significant difference between the outcome of those changes—the revenue that was eventually raised—and the behaviour changes that the SFC assumed would happen? I recognise that there are questions for the commission about methodology in that regard, but can you say whether behaviour change resulted in anything that was significantly different from what had been budgeted for?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Ross Greer
I will return to the additional dwelling supplement. If you were to assume no behaviour change because of the rise from 4 per cent to 6 per cent, what would the additional revenue have been from that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Ross Greer
Therefore, there is a roughly £20 million projected loss because of behaviour change.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Ross Greer
I am sorry, Graeme. I probably phrased that wrong. You are assuming that the additional change to the rate will result in behaviour change that would be worth around £20 million, but at what point would it have resulted in a change that would be equivalent to the amount that it would otherwise raise if there was no behaviour change? At what point would we raise it by so much that the amount of money that is coming in would be no more than it was in the previous year at a lower rate? I presume that, if we were to raise it to 20 per cent, we would take in a lot less money than we did from ADS specifically last year. I take your point that we would probably bring in more LBTT, but the amount coming in from ADS would be a lot less.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Ross Greer
[Inaudible.]—from wider economic changes.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Ross Greer
My next question might be best directed at Professor Muscatelli, as our domestic expert. Do you have any views on whether the Government is using its existing capital borrowing powers effectively enough? I acknowledge that they are extremely limited. Have you looked at whether they could be better used?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Ross Greer
I will switch to the issue of tax and your recommendation on continuing to make the tax system more progressive. Do you have any views on the papers that were recently published by the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the Institute for Public Policy Research, which largely focus on the introduction of new tax powers? Both papers included proposals on changes to income tax, non-domestic rates and so on, but they focus primarily on creating new powers, particularly around property taxation, which you mentioned, Professor Muscatelli.
I am conscious of the time, so I will roll in a second question specifically on the higher tax band. Is the range in the higher tax band now too large? For example, should we tax people who earn between £45,000 and £60,000 at the same rate for that portion of their income as we tax that portion of income for those who earn between £100,000 and £125,000?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Ross Greer
I return to the point about capital powers and your recommendation for the Scottish Government to maintain capital spend. Professor Muscatelli acknowledges the Government’s limitations when it comes to capital borrowing, so I want to understand a little bit better how you think that the Government can maintain capital spend when the capital budget is largely set for it through the settlement from the UK Government. You might think that the limited capital borrowing powers are not being used well enough or that we could increase taxation further to increase the capital budget, or it could be a question of reallocation within capital because there is a belief that some capital spend is not efficient enough and we could get more bang for our buck through reallocation. Could you expand a little bit on how you think the Scottish Government could achieve what you recommended, given the limitations that you have acknowledged?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Ross Greer
Given that that change takes place immediately, to avoid a very obvious bit of avoidance that would otherwise have taken place, do you have a projection for what the additional income will now be in quarter 4 of this financial year?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2022
Ross Greer
I have a final question, which is just to jog my memory. How did the eventual outcome to the 2018 changes to income tax across the board compare to the behaviour change assumptions that were made at the time?