One-third of Scots unaware of Holyrood’s tax changes as tax and accountancy bodies call for increased awareness of devolved taxes

The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) and ICAS (the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland) are calling on Scotland’s political parties to improve public awareness of devolved taxation in the next Scottish Parliament, as a new poll shows that a third of Scots are unaware that the Scottish Parliament has made changes to the tax system.

The 2021 poll found that:

• 33 per cent of those surveyed said they were unaware that the Scottish Parliament had made changes to the tax system since 2015 (such as to income tax and council tax).
• 26 per cent said they were ‘not aware of’ the Scottish Parliament’s powers to make changes to income tax rates in Scotland, while 25 per cent said the same for Holyrood’s powers over Council Tax, Business Rates and Land and Buildings Transaction Tax
• Just over one in four (27 per cent) correctly identified that income tax powers are shared between the Scottish and UK parliaments, a fall of 4 points since the survey was first conducted in 2018
• 83 per cent of Scots surveyed think they need better information about how taxes are decided in Scotland. This compares to 86 per cent in 2019 and 84 per cent in 2018
• 39 per cent knew a little or a lot about the Scottish Taxpayer status (the rules that define who is eligible to pay Scottish Income Tax). This is an increase on the 34 per cent who answered in this way in 2019, but is 9 per cent lower than the 2018 survey

The steps that CIOT and ICAS would like to see introduced in the next Scottish Parliament include:

• Strengthening parliamentary scrutiny of tax by introducing a Scottish equivalent of the Westminster Finance Bill to make changes to the tax system easier and more visible and removing the constitution remit from the Finance Committee to enable it to spend more time scrutinising tax policy
• Better budget coordination between the Scottish and UK governments to overcome recent budget delays that the organisations say have ‘cut across the devolution settlement’
• Limiting the use of Holyrood’s tax powers as a source of ‘last minute budget concessions’ and moving towards the development of a longer-term approach to tax policy development that considers existing tax powers alongside any future proposals for new taxes
• Improving public awareness and understanding of the Scottish tax regime through improved visibility of tax in the Scottish political calendar and promoting tax education within the Scottish curriculum

PAYadvice.UK 16/4/2021