A top rate of 50 percent? A wider range of tax bands? Lower allowances? Or some combination of all three? When it unveils its Budget on Thursday, the Scottish National Party is just about certain to use its power to increase income taxes. The only real debate is about who will take the hit.
On the day, Nicola Sturgeon will no doubt wheel out the usual lines about the need to ‘invest’ in public services, reverse ‘Tory cuts’, and perhaps add in a sound-bite or two about the damage done by a ‘hard Brexit’. And yet, in fact higher taxes will only damage the Scottish economy, and by extension the whole of the UK. We will all end paying a price for the SNP’s recklessness.
Even if you exclude oil, Scotland has always been one of the more successful part of the UK economy.
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