CONGRATULATIONS to The National for your series on the long overdue need to axe the council tax.
There’s no doubt the Scottish Socialist Party proposals for a Scottish Service Tax would be more progressive than the current council tax. But if they involve setting only a national tax rate, they in effect give up the “local” in local government, turning elected councils into branch offices of central government – like we saw in the imposed SNP council tax “freeze” that helped millionaires in mansions, and especially during the “rate-capping” period of the Thatcher UK Government.
READ MORE: Watch our live council tax discussion with Common Weal's Craig Dalzell
What’s the point of local elections if you can’t change anything to do with income for funding services, and just have to follow diktat of central government budgeting?
As the Building a Local Scotland campaign and host of others point out, the UK state including Scotland is already among the most highly centralised states in the world – most other states in Europe have a higher proportion of overall taxation based on local democracy. Even in the UK a century ago, locally determined rates set by councils raised more income for public services than UK-wide income tax.
The alternative for Scotland, whether under devolution or independence, is not the “local income tax” of the LibDems – which would just give richer areas more money – but a system of fair “equalisation” between councils based on the relative wealth of the local population and the cost of providing services, allowing variation determined by local voters in setting local tax rates.
READ MORE: This is how a land tax could work in Scotland
In the 1920s, the radical councillors in Poplar in London, led by popular left-wing leader George Lansbury, went to prison for defying the Tory government crippling their council and its inhabitants. Their demand was NOT for the Tory government of the time to set the council budget or bThis is how a land tax could work in Scotlandail out their council. The Poplar councillors’ banner proudly proclaimed they were “marching to the High Court and possibly to prison to secure equalisation of rates for poor boroughs”.
The Poplar councillors were imprisoned for refusing to follow Tory policies, but a mass campaign forced their release and they WON a scheme for equalisation of rate values between boroughs. Since then, governments of all political stripes have moved to restrict councils’ democratic freedoms to defend and support their local populations, most notably in the Tory removal of councillors in Clay Cross in the 1970s, and in Liverpool and Lambeth councils in the 1980s.
Progressive taxation is an achievable goal, but we mustn’t throw local democracy out and replace it with undemocratic and bureaucratic centralisation. A system COMBINING a progressive system of locally determined taxation rates WITH equalisation based on wealth, so that poorer areas with lower tax bases are not disadvantaged, is the best solution.
Michael Picken
Glasgow
I READ the SSP’s suggestion regarding a new form of tax based on income. The millionaire Polson was mentioned. The underlying theme is that the owner’s income will be the measure of the new tax. Is it possible that Polson could transfer title to his wife earning no income? What if a home is jointly owned? Are both salaries in play, which then goes the way of the poll tax? Alternatively, what if the ownership or tenancy is in the name of a spouse or partner with a salary of less than £12k but the non-owner spouse of partner earns over £50k?
Can someone enlighten me?
Peter Macari
Aberdeen
THE “public utility” companies seem to be a potential source of revenue that I have not seen mentioned. So far as I am concerned only Scottish Water is now a public utility – the others such as electricity, gas and telecoms are private companies and yet they all have the right to lay apparatus under public roads and footways. Why should they not pay an annual fee for the privilege, and why not charge them for the number of days they occupy the road when carrying our repairs and upgrades?
Perhaps if they had to pay to lay and keep their apparatus under the road, our roads and footways would not develop so many potholes and local authorities would have a valuable source of revenue for roads maintenance. We would also not have road users racking up unnecessary costs through delays caused by utility works.
Ian Lawson
Milngavie
JOHN Swinney’s appeal on behalf of Palestine is both naive and idealistic.
Palestine is/was itself a two-state problem: Hamas in Gaza versus the PLO/Fatah in the West Bank. This fracture prevented a single unified state of Palestine, which Israel could and did exploit.
With the near annihilation of Gaza and Israel’s hegemony over the West Bank, the statehood of Palestine has been eclipsed. Palestine has become a virtual state, denied constitutional sovereignty: a Scotland in the Middle East.
Thom Cross
Carluke
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