| Comment | Because in general incomes (and growth) in Scotland are lower than the UK average, if Scotland had the same tax rates as the rest of the UK, it would raise less tax per capita. So Scotland has to have higher tax rates to have the same level of public spending.
So the Scottish Govt isn't taking significantly more tax overall (£500m is less than 1% of the overall budget) but it is using devolved powers to take it in a more progessive manner, increasing the burden on higher/top rate payers and enacting relief to lower-income taxpayers and benefit claimants.
However, as I say the way this interacts with the Block Grant isn't simple and that also needs to be considered to answer the question of whether there is a net benefit to devolved taxation or not, and that's beyond the scope of a reddit post. |
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