Anonymous

The unchallenged assertion that high earners will leave if income tax levels are raised has been shown to be a lie. It is not a factor which unduly influences high earners who have their principal home in Scotland.

Because their main home is here they also get the common benefits that every other citizen is entitled to, including free higher education. They also have friends and family here and social links.

In addition, often a fair amount of the money they receive is not ‘income’ that is subject to ‘income’ tax. They have financial advisers who specialise in tax ‘efficiency’, ie not paying their fair share of tax in a ‘perfectly legal’ way. Sadly, Scotland is part of the U.K., the home of money laundering and the powers over that are not devolved and so, the high earners can use these loopholes.

However, ‘high EARNERS’ is a wilfully misleading terminology. There are people, employed and self employed who actually EARN what they are paid. But, there is another group, to which some high earners belong and these are the seriously wealthy, and, in most cases, most of this wealth is inherited. They have not EARNED most of their wealth and much of that wealth is in land and property

So, it is not incomes that ought to be the focus of taxation: it is land and property.

The SG does have some powers in this regard, but it has been very cautious in using them. Partly, it is down to the fact that the land register was allowed by the landowners and cronies in Westminster to get out of date over decades and financial regulations by Westminster has enabled the actual ownership to be obscured by chains of shell companies, often ‘offshore’. The Scottish Government has been brining it up to date and making progress in identifying ‘the beneficial owners’ ie the real human beings who own it rather than ‘XYZ Inc British Virgin Islands’.

These are real threats to wealth and power and that is why the Scottish Landowners’ Federation attempted to bankrupt Andy Wightman who was an MSP at the time. And, further moves will attract further attacks. However, recently the STUC published a paper indicating ways, using existing powers the SG could raise a further £4billion. Some of the legislation and other changes would take a couple of years, but raising c£4billion per annum is reasonable within 5 years and some of that can be raised fairly quickly.

So, we need to raise awareness of land and property ownership and establish a public acceptance of the principle is taxing these things.

Earlier this week our community council had our Christmas dinner and our three city councillors attended 1 Green, 1 Labour and 1 SNP. They were in complete agreement about using these routes to raise revenue. So, I am cautiously optimistic. Despite our justified criticism of the leadership of Scottish Labour within the Labour rank and file there are communitarian social democrats and democratic socialists and many of them actually support independence.

Today I had lunch with a lifelong Labour Party member who is unashamed to say he is a socialist and by the way he has lived his life has demonstrated his sincerity. He has held high office in the party and in the Council in years gone by. He is frankly and outspokenly horrified by Starmer and his views. He does not support independence because he holds fast to his long internationalist ideal of the solidarity of ordinary people against the capitalists. However, I do not think he would oppose independence were it to become more likely or actually be achieved.

We must ‘keep our eyes on the prize’.