Scottish Labour’s plans for a 50p top rate of income tax are deeply flawed and economically illiterate, Murdo Fraser MSP of the Scottish Conservatives said today.
Labour want to reintroduce the 50p tax rate of income tax for those earning over £150,000, however the party are still in the dark about how much the hike would actually raise.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale even admitted this herself in Holyrood Magazine last month, when she said:
“It could also raise zero because of the mechanisms by which people can avoid paying tax so it is up to £100 million which we would ring-fence purely for school spending.
“But in the case of us not raising what we hope, we also have an additional redistributive mechanism which we would use for education, which is to scrap the APD measure would bring £250 million and we could spend that on education inequality.”
And today, Ms Dugdale pledged to spend the proceeds from the 5p top tax increase on education – despite previously saying they were earmarked for replacing tax credit cuts.
Scottish Labour appear to have done no analysis on the tax base or tax take from a 5p hike, taking no account of the risk of a large number of high rate tax payers simply relocating to England rather than pay an extra 5 per cent.
Ultimately, with top earners driven away, this would mean less money for Scotland, not more.
Scottish Conservative enterprise spokesman Murdo Fraser said:
“Here we have a Labour party who don’t even know themselves how much their tax plans would raise. Their economic plans showcase complete economic illiteracy.
“There is a real risk that many of our top rate of earners would move to England to avoid the tax increase and Kezia Dugdale has even admitted herself that the rate could also raise zero money.
“From the start, the Scottish Conservatives warned that a 50p tax hike would harm job and wealth creation in Scotland because it is anti-business.
“This is yet more evidence we have a Labour party stuck in the 1980s and determined to drag Scotland dangerously to the Left.”