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This government plans to design a simple and transparent tax system after independence. As set out on page 121 of Scotland’s Future, the government will work with Revenue Scotland to simplify the tax system to reduce compliance costs, streamline reliefs and help to reduce tax avoidance, with the aim of generating additional tax revenues of up to £250 million per year by the end of the first term of an independent Parliament.

As recognised in the Oxford Economics report, this commitment is separate to our plans to set out a timescale for reducing corporation tax in Scotland by up to 3 percentage points below the prevailing UK rate.

The Scottish Government did not provide information to Oxford Economics to inform its recent report referred to in the question.

Under the current constitutional framework the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament only have limited control over fiscal policy. The Scottish Parliament is only responsible for around 8 per cent of taxes raised in Scotland when including a geographical share of North Sea revenues. With the new tax powers of the Scotland Act 2012 this figure will only increase to around 16 per cent.

Under the Scotland Act, if revenues in Scotland were to increase by 1 per cent across the four main taxes and spending on key benefit to fall by 1 per cent, only 12 per cent of the total net gain in revenues would be retained by the Scottish Government. More detail is available on pages 6 and 7 of Childcare and Labour Market Participation – Economic Analysis paper.

As outlined in the answer to question S4W-20501 on 24 April 2014, the £700 million is the estimated increase in revenues that could arise if Scotland matched Swedish female participation rate. All tax rates are held constant.

The £700 million figure referred to in the question is an output of the Scottish Government’s in-house modelling of the impacts of increased female participation. The Computable General Equilibrium model that was used for this modelling work was developed by the well-respected Fraser of Allander Institute at University of Strathclyde who are among the leading experts in this field of economic modelling.

The information on the component tax revenue streams that contribute to the £700 million is available in the Childcare and Labour Market Participation – Economic Analysis paper published in January 2014.

The Scottish Government modelled the impacts of increased female participation using a Computable General Equilibrium model of the Scottish economy. As outlined in the Childcare and Labour Market Participation – Economic Analysis paper, the increase in the tax revenues by £700 million that could arise from matching Sweden’s female participation rate would be expected to come from a range of different tax revenue streams. As highlighted in the paper, as individuals move into employment, or increase the hours they work, they would pay more tax through income tax and national insurance. In addition, as individuals’ incomes increase and their spending rises, receipts from indirect taxes such as VAT, fuel duty and excise duties would also be expected to rise.

As outlined in the Childcare and Labour Market Participation – Economic Analysis paper, the increase in the tax revenues by £700 million that could arise from matching Sweden’s female participation rate would be expected to come from a range of different tax revenue streams. Further detail is contained in the paper on pages 4-6.

The information on the number of all parliamentary questions answered by Scottish Ministers since 2011, where the members were referred to the original answer is not held centrally. A parliamentary questions search can be performed by following the following link:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-20502 on 24 April 2014. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx