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| Reluctant Hero |
Holyrood tax powers 'have limits'This quote from Alexander is brilliant, because she knows what she is talking about when discussing legal matters
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7338194.stm Holyrood tax powers 'have limits' The SNP and Liberal Democrats want to scrap the council tax The Scottish Government has dismissed a claim that its flagship local income tax policy could not be implemented. The Treasury said the policy falls foul of the devolution settlement, since the tax would be set and collected centrally and not locally. But Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill insisted this was wrong and accused London of trying to undermine the policy to replace the council tax. The SNP administration wants a local income tax set at 3p. Under the devolution settlement, local government finance is a devolved matter. We are not in breach of the Scotland Act Kenny MacAskill Justice Minister Scotland Act - The Tax Varying Power But the Treasury insisted that if the tax was not set or collected locally then it would be outwith the competence of the Scottish Government under the terms of the Scotland Act. Mr MacAskill told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme that the Treasury view was "nonsense". He said: "We as a government are getting on and replacing the unfair council tax with a fair system of taxation based on ability to pay, a local income tax." The justice minister went on to accuse the treasury of trying to "bully" the Scottish Government. "We are not in breach of the Scotland Act," he insisted. Plans unclear Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander said the row revealed flaws in the SNP's policy. She said: "The SNP cannot say how much it will raise, how much it will cost to implement it and now they are unable to establish the legality of it." Scottish Liberal Democrat chief whip Robert Brown said his party supported a local income tax but disagreed with the Scottish Government on how the rate should be decided. She said: "There are differences between the Liberal Democrats and the SNP on whether the rate should be set by government or local councils. "These are the issues which need to be discussed if we are to build a parliamentary majority in favour of change and overcome the Labour and Tory supporters of council tax." |
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| Aventinian |
So, now it's been exposed as not only useless but downright illegal (and a compelling case has been made in that regard).
I'm sure a great sigh of relief is going up in St Andrew's House that they don't actually have to go ahead with this shambles, yet can still blame it all on the UK Government. |
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| George |
Garbage, your post reads like a headline from The Scotsman, with roughly the same credibility. This latest argument put forward by the Unionists has been dismantled. Strange that they appear so terrified of a supposed disastrous policy that they are prepared to contrive any excuse in an attempt at sabotaging it's implementation. |
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| RadgeJougal |
If Labour had any decency, they would have scrapped the council tax themselves. | ||||
| Jimbo |
Hi Radge, if they had any decency, half of them would resign. |
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| RadgeJougal |
That too.
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| Aventinian |
By whom exactly? A few Nationalists who enjoy misquoting the Scotland Act? I'd be surprised if they could dismantle an IKEA shelving unit. Imagine, if you will, this scenario. The SNP raise this local income tax to, say, 10%. They then apportion 100% of it to local authorities, yet keep their budgets identical; in effect, they've just created a Scotland-wide tax which substantially boosts their coffers. Is that legal, in your mind? No, of course not - it's positively ludicrous. Why? Because while still 'taxes to fund local authority expenditure' they are not 'local taxes to fund local authority expenditure' as the exemption to taxation issues allows for. The Treasury, HMRC and the opposition parties have made a fine case for this. The best response Nicola Sturgeon could come up with was to hurl insults, conflate the issues, and trot out her daft 'unfair council tax' mantra which she shamelessly nicked off of Tommy Sheridan and of course criticise the government for removing the starting rate of income tax, despite these objections being not only irrelevant but completely and utterly disingenuous. Sounds about par for the course. Tell me, what is 'local' about this tax proposal? |
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| George |
Bandying words with you is a waste of time 'Av', feel free to believe what you want to believe. | ||||
| Aventinian |
Ah, I see you're opting for the Nicola Sturgeon defence. It's all right, I'm sure your fellow Elect on the fringes of the SNP will all inherently know exactly what you mean. |
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| Economist |
This is a very interesting argument. For completeness I'll replicate the specific reservation in Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998:
It would appear that the emboldened form of taxation, centrally set and pooled, by the Scottish Government would not exactly fit the bill of a local tax, either, as the specfic reservation purportedly accounts for. |
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