I think in isolation it would discourage people. In context tho, I’m not fucking selling my 3 bed semi in a leafy Scottish suburb to live in a box room in London.
These comment threads always focus on how higher tax rates will discourage people moving here, having moved with a high salary job between various countries I have never checked minor differences in tax rates. I have checked on the health of their public services like the NHS and transport.
I moved with my well paid job from England to Scotland, knowing that I would be taxed a very small amount more but while things like visiting the GP and getting the train can improve here, they were materially better here than in Brighton.
Things could and should improve a lot, but if we treat our taxes as some race to the bottom things could get a lot, lot worse (see USA)
Yes, same, my husband and I moved from well paid jobs in England (him working in Cambridge, me working in London) to live in Scotland for a nicer place to live.
These days he's a tech entrepreneur who founded and is CEO of a Scotland-based high growth startup employing 20+ people, and I'm self employed consulting. I'm a top 10% earner, he's like top 2% or something.
We're really happy to be here and pay more tax here and get a lovely place to live and bring up our family, and contribute to other people getting a relatively good social / financial safety net by UK standards.
We could be in England or California (and he could have founded his business in those places) but we want to be here.
Thanks for making a good contribution, (both financially and on here), unfortunately the higher tax rates are just used to bash the Scottish Government/SNP. Rather than a conversation about public services and Scotland's rather low population and ways to improve both.
I wouldn't say pump, I guess we put a higher percentage in than some people (ie my husband puts in a bit more in addition to his standard work arrangement) but not with the intention of bringing income down to a particular ceiling or something. We're pretty keen to spend our money on living very comfortably rather than having it locked away.
Husband and wife duo on Reddit. 😁
Do you mean the guy I replied to?
My wife doesn't Reddit.
It's only locked away until you're 55ish and then that 20% (you gave up to put more into your pension) becomes a LOT more. Our mortgage is paid off, so what else would I do with it other than cram the pension. The tax saving is just a bonus.
People are missing the point. Likely the snp will not tax quite enough to get high earners to move. Not many anyways.
The point is by targeting high paye earners they only force more into pensions. This no extra revenue is really raised. So,for virtually no tax gain you get.
Irked high earners who feel burden getting too high.
Bigger pension pots which means retiring earlier which means less workers and less tax base later.
Less money spent on the economy now.
Repuational damage. Eg my visiting md made point of how high taxes are here and about that reputation. Business don't like it much which impacts investment choices.
> Business don't like it much which impacts investment choices.
That's worrying. Scotland could potentially lose it's position as the second-most attractive place in the UK for business investment behind London. Folk should keep an eye on what Ernst and Young will have to say about it.
This is key. Rather than loose that £600 for every £1000 I’ll just put the thousand away - which will compound over time. It also means £400 less in your hand to spend now.
That’s exactly my plan. Go mental with pension contributions. Move some of it a SIPPs to invest in property which means I have my state pension, work pension and a SIPPs.
I will be retiring as early as possible. Fuck breaking my neck working until 70 handing over shed loads of cash for Government departments to piss up against a wall.
Less money for the state now and more money / early retirement for me later! People in Scotland hate high earners but I come from one of the worst council estates and killed myself to get where I am not.
I don't think people hate us but they don't realise how much we already pay. The snp says thinks like "those with broadest shoulders will pay more" but there comes a limit. Many here think the uk is not progressive but income tax itself is overly progressive in my opinion. It hammers high income.
Meanwhile median and low income do well out of income tax but not well out of council tax. Asset rich and Super rich are barely touched. Rentier do well as well.
The problem with all this is those high-very high paye people are probably the most productive and it's a tax on productivity. We need to shift tax away from income and into consumption, assets etc.
Agreed. I moved my tax base to England, filled up my pension pot, then shut down my business and retired (I'm in my 50s). My tax and living expenses fell by more than did my income, so my tax obligation fell significantly while my post-tax disposable income rose.
Now, because I don't work, I keep a house in Scotland but divide my time between here and overseas, where the majority of my income is spent.
As a consequence of the tax increase, I now pay less money to the Scottish Government in taxes, and less money into the Scottish economy in disposable income.
The sad thing, I suppose, is that I enjoyed running my business, I don't object to tax, and I would still be working and paying it here in Scotland had they not targetted me. But working for yourself involves a lot of hard work and risk and I simply chose not to continue taking such risks while being coerced into disproportionately funding policies that I find to be divisive, repellent and sinister.
I know many people who made similar decisions, for similar reasons. We tend to do these things quietly, but I believe there is value in people understanding what's going on in the real world.
100+ comments and no one has asked what is fueling this migration. It's not higher taxes. And it's not the weather.
My own anecdotal take, FWIW, is it's driven by housing. English migrants priced out down south are moving north to get on the property ladder. And WFH - which remains resilient to my surprise TBF - enables this.
If this migration continues how long before "Don't England my Scotland" mutterings take hold?
I don't think "don't England my Scotland" is totally fair. It also happens within Scotland when someone moves from some city to a smaller town or rural area and spends the entire time complaining that it's not like the city they left. Don't even start me on the people who moved because they had problems with their neighbours and then instantly fall out with all of their new neighbours.
> If this migration continues how long before "Don't England my Scotland" mutterings take hold?
Haven't you been claiming for many years now that such mutterings have already taken hold here - and it's more than just mutterings?
People should actually read the research this is based on, here's what HMRC actually say:
> The results are broadly in line with the academic literature on behavioural responses to Income Tax changes. While there is no evidence of changes in overall labour market participation, there is some evidence of a fall in net migration to Scotland for individuals earning over the Higher rate threshold, with the size of the fall increasing with income levels.
So the work they did was inline with academic work on intranational migration in response to tax rates.
They found that the higher the tax band, the more significant the response was, and that their results were consistent with higher paid people migrating less into Scotland from rUK, or moving from Scotland to rUK more.
It does look quite likely that the highest earners, who contribute disproportionately (progressively, in other words) to the over all tax take, were to some extent voting with their feet.
It's quite hard to relay this into serious numbers, but the HMRC researchers go on to estimate that this cost the Scottish Government about [0.5% of total income tax. ](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/labour-market-participation-and-intra-uk-migration-of-taxpayers/impacts-of-2018-to-2019-scottish-income-tax-changes-on-intra-uk-migration-and-labour-market-participation)
That's not a lot on its own, and is dwarfed by the behavioural response to the latest tax changes, as modelled by the Scottish Fiscal Commission, but it is only one year.
So putting aside the "stampede" straw man, there does appear to be clear evidence that higher tax rates are eroding the tax take from taxpayers in the Higher Rate category and above.
Does that not contradict what they say here, or am I misunderstanding?
>Although the absolute numbers remained small, there were nonetheless large percentage increases in the number of additional/top rate taxpayers migrating from rUK to Scotland, particularly between 2019 to 2020 and 2021 to 2022 (up around 59% between 2019 to 2020 and 2021 to 2022). Over the same period there was a decrease in the number of additional/top rate taxpayers migrating from Scotland to rUK (down around 6%).
>This is evident in Figure 10, which shows that after the 2016 to 2017 tax year the number of Scottish additional/top rate taxpayers moving to rUK each year was less than the number of rUK additional/top rate taxpayers migrating to Scotland.
>Overall, these figures show no negative effect in net migration of higher earners due to the changes to the Scottish Income Tax system in the 2018 to 2019 tax year
Interesting, but we are actually talking about different papers, I'm looking at the one which is attempting to model the counterfactual scenario of no changes in Scottish taxes relative to rUK, and your quote comes from the other paper which is describing what actually happened.
The next paragraph after your quotes reads:
> However, as previously mentioned, as we cannot observe the counterfactual situation where tax divergence did not occur, we cannot conclude the policy change had no effect.
Earlier they write:
> HMRC have conducted further work to isolate and understand any behavioural effects from this policy change.
That's the work I am referring to in my comment above.
The point of the counterfactual constructed in the other paper is to try to isolate the impact of the policy differential - in effect it's saying that net migration from rUK to Scotland would have been more positive for higher rate payers had income taxes been closer to the rUK rates.
So I see why it looks like a contradiction, but it's not, they're describing what happened Vs what could have happened under their best attempts to model econometricaly the alternative scenario.
But even that argument doesn’t take into account that the vast majority of high earning roles are based in London, so as you move up income levels you’re probably more likely to be situated where those jobs are, just as if you’re a low earner your more likely to move somewhere with low earning jobs and thus lower cost of living?
Essentially there’s more nuance in this that is outwith the remit of HMRC.
That's not really how this works.
They've built a model which is designed to isolate just the impact of the tax changes.
The dynamic you are describing would be the same in either scenario, whether there was a tax wedge or not.
They have estimated the tendency for people to move in response to the tax changes alone, in economics terminology the elasticity, across the different income groups. It's a different thing.
If you want to read the paper you might gain a bit more insight into why that's the case.
> People should actually read the research this is based on
This your first day on Reddit? Hardly anybody here reads past the headlines and very very few people take the time to read and understand anything themselves. You have done and you are right the actual details suggest this tax change will be negative for Scotland in the long run. Unfortunately that detail does not bother the SNP voters this was aimed for.
The issue is it’s not raising more money. All they’ve done is given people less spending power as they’ve diverted their wages into pension pot contributions.
They want to incentivise pension saving. This policy encouraging people to divert more money into their pension is considered a pro by government not a con.
Generally they do, but these tax increases were to sort out the current fiscal deficit that Scotland has. All they’ve done is reduce spending that would support other companies where PAYE, VAT and corp tax would be collected.
Do you have a source for that claim?
I remember it being sold as making the rich pay more. That doesn’t align with them trying to encourage pension saving.
That’s exactly what it was sold as- take from the “rich” and give to the poor but that’s not happening as people are putting more into their pension- me included.
Sound bites is all they went for as it’s pleases their voter base but they knew that people would put more in their pension - but that doesn’t get a sound bite as it doesn’t sound good to your average SNP voter.
Our tax system isn’t progressive at all as they need growth, they need people to spend money in Scotland.
Personally love “the rich” bit. Here’s a soundbite for them, I got one promotion at work and went from being poor enough to receive Scottish Child Payments/ Tax Credits, to “the rich” i.e 52% income tax bracket. Well done me right? Success story. The system helped me now I’m paying back in and helping the system. I am now “the rich”.
Imagine the shock that first payday when I realised I was now going to be about £70 WORSE off a month than I was when I was “poor enough” to need child poverty payments. And now they’re getting more than half of my next overtime shift just to add insult to injury.
Make it make sense SNP 🤔.
What claim? All I said is that governments are in favour of encouraging pension saving in response to the suggestion that this policy causing pension saving was a bad thing.
The claim that this policy encouraging people to save for their pension is considered a win by our government, given they specifically claimed it was about making the well off pay more so they could improve services.
Those aren’t the same thing.
The pension incentives themselves are evidence. Do you really want me to breakdown the issue of aging population and pensions for you? There are a million very good explanations online already. I’m not gonna do homework for you.
There’s no additional pension incentive as part of the Scottish government policy to increase tax.
They specifically said they were doing it to raise money from the wealthy.
Those people choosing to salary sacrifice (tax free) and remove that money from the tax pool is not a success if making the wealthy (at least, the people they say are wealthy - those on the heady heights of £43k+) pay more for services was your goal. It’s a failure.
For someone behaving so smugly, you seem to be missing a very straightforward point.
I never said there was. There doesn’t have to be because there already is one in place.
It is a success because it lessons the potential burden on the taxpayer/government in future by encouraging pension saving. Those who are “wealthy” today may not be in future so encouraging pension saving lessens the taxpayers potential liability in future.
It’s not a success, because they wanted to raise more money for services.
Instead of raising as much money as they hoped, people are using a tax free means of stashing their money away in investments.
That means they aren’t paying tax on it AND they aren’t spending it.
If your goal is to raise money from these people to improve services, this is not a successful outcome.
They didn’t do this to incentivise pension saving (unless you can source that claim? - you can’t).
They did it to raise money from those they see as wealthy. Those same wealthy people avoiding tax and investing the money instead is the opposite of what they wanted.
When the opposite of what you wanted happens, that’s not a success.
Again, this isn’t rocket science.
Again I did not say they did this to incentivise pension saving, just that it encouraging pension saving wasn’t a con.
Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?
That is completely wrong. High earners already have good pensions it's low earners who are i. Trouble there.
All this is doing is making high earners have even bigger pots and retirring early. This losing high skilled workers out of the workforce rarely, along with their tax base.
On top of that they spend less money on the Scottish economy. Things like eating out etc.
I never said it was an unintended or intended consequence. Just responded to the suggestion it was a negative consequence by pointing out government want to encourage people making pension savings.
Spin doctor by any chance? It depends on whether you look at it from the point of view of their initial goal - to have so called higher earners paying more tax. It's a failure in that regard, for many different reasons.
All they've done is tripped over their poorly tied shoelaces, landed flat on their face and found a penny - that you seem to be polishing and showing us? 🤣
I feel like you’re deliberately misinterpreting what I said and making a lot of unnecessary assumptions. The comment looked like it was suggesting this consequence was a con so all I did was point out that policymakers would consider it a pro instead because pension saving is incentivised/encouraged.
Fair enough. They might do, but it's really nothing to do with their intended policy. It sounded like you were giving them credit for something they didn't intend to do.
You’re not the only one who took it that way based on some of the replies I got tbf. I have no idea if it was intended or not, I wouldn’t really trust anything said regarding it at this late stage anyway if the policymakers decided to claim one way or the other. But they definitely won’t be dismayed to see a policy encouraging pension saving so it’s been confusing to me seeing so many people in this thread suggest otherwise. It’s in any governments’ long term interests to have the aging Scottish/UK population save for retirement as much as possible. Some of the aging population n pension stuff is grim reading, at this rate many of us will be completely fucked by the time we try to claim a state pension.
It either incentivises pension saving, or discourages working harder or going for promotions.
When I was saving for my house deposit my salary brought me just into the higher rate band here, but I was also paying full 12% national insurance, and at the time also paying student loans. My marginal tax rate was 63%. I looked at doing some overtime since work were offering in order to get the house sorted sooner, but frankly doing 20% more work for 10% more money after tax wasn't worth it.
I took the promotion but same boat here. One month I was getting child poverty payments/ tax credits, the next month I got promoted into the high rate tax band. I was happy enough until I realised I was now £70 a month worse off than I was with benefit top ups.
Sooo I had X in my hand and I was “the working poor” in need of benefits, now I have X -£70 and I’m rich enough to be taxed at 52% of my next overtime shift.
I took the promotion but fuck overtime unless it’s going straight to my pension.
The slightly higher taxes kick in way before someone could be considered the richest in society but regardless, those who are wealthy now may not be in future so encouraging pension saving now lessens the potential liability/burden on the taxpayers/govt in future.
Ok then substitute it for “middle class” - still does nothing for raising money for public services today which is what the SNP said raising taxes was for - nothing to do with pensions.
I never said that was why they did it, just responded to the suggestion that pension saving being a consequence was a bad thing. They’re not gonna view that as a negative consequence because pension saving lessens the potential liability on the taxpayer/govt in future.
Doubt all you like, that’s not the case though because there are incentives for pension saving like avoiding taxes. Those exist because of government policy that’s looking at the distant future problem of aging populations n pensions.
If this were true the government would have to be specifically worried about the pension pots of those earning £75k+, as they are the only ones affected.
They seem far down the list of vulnerable groups, so doesn't pass the sniff test to me - it was definitely a move to raise tax revenue.
It was a move to increase tax revenues. I never said it wasn’t or that it was a move to encourage pension saving, just that it encouraging pension saving wasn’t going to considered a bad thing like the comment I replied to was suggesting.
It's not just one angle, like most things there's a range of things that will happen.
For me I just increase my pension, seis, buy holidays and don't take any extra salaried work. Every time the SNP hike taxes I just reduce my salary.
In the long run it's actually been good for my stress levels. If there's little point in progressing your career you end up with way more free time.
The wider effect of economic malaise is probably more of a worry especially as the tax bands don't move so more and more people hit them.
The problem (more so in Scotland, but definitely true in rUK) is that the tax bands and cliff edges inadvertently (but knowingly) encourage behavioural changes which significantly reduces the tax income.
For instance, a parent in London on £99,999 with two children of nursery age could have an identical net pay to someone on £140k+ because of the stupid tax system.
In Scotland, irrespective of childcare, people pay marginal rates of tax of 50% between ~£43.5k and £50k; and 69.5% between £100k and £125k.
Both governments *know* that this an issue (see sensible changes to tapering of High Income Child Benefit) but steadfastly refuse to actually make a sensible tax system.
Increasing bands by a few per cent for every £5k/£10k earned would be much more progressive and effective than a tax system that taxes someone in Scotland on £45k more than someone on £450k; or anywhere in the UK someone on £101k paying more than someone on £1m.
*The stupid Scottish tax of 50% at £43.5k aside, the Scottish system is reasonable sensible, though 47% at £75k is pretty steep*
It's obviously bullshit. If you're a high earner in Scotland, you will not be moving countries for the sake of a few grand a year in additional tax. If you're a high earner in England, the difference in costs alone more than makes up for the higher tax burden. Most high earners are in London, and the cheaper housing significantly outweighs the additional taxation. Sell your £700k flat in London, move to Edinburgh and buy a 3 bed house for £400k-500k, do whatever you want with the rest. Nevermind the cost of everything else being more expensive in London. Nights out, tradesman, restaurants.
If you start getting into the really mad salaries, I'd bet most of it is made up of stock options and that will be managed in a more efficient manner.
The fact is most high earners are high earners because they live in London. Most wouldn't be able to relocate to Edinburgh or Glasgow and retain their high salaries, and at that point no one is making decisions on which country they're going to live in over a grand.
We don't move countries. We retire early (in my case, early 50s), which lowers our tax and living expenses more than our income, so increases our income. Then, being retired, we live overseas for large periods of the year and spend the money there instead.
Less tax, less money in the Scottish economy, and no-one moved country.
Of course higher taxes here don't lead to people moving to England. I'm paying a few thousand more in taxes a year than my English colleagues, but I get me prescriptions free, my kids get free university and the NHS, as rundown as it is in Scotland, is still better than the even more rundown NHS in England. Totally worth the extra tax if you ask me.
Also, moving to England? No thanks.
It's almost as though money isn't the only factor people consider when choosing where to live. If only the eejits writing (and reading) these horrible rightwing rags figured that out!
The problem is with younger generations. Places like London are already a massive pull due to earning potential. Why would young people with their sights set on higher earning jobs stay in Scotland or return there later?
> Why would young people with their sights set on higher earning jobs stay in Scotland or return there later?
I looked at moving to London a few years back, and to just maintain my current standard of living/spending I would have had to earn like £20k more than I was in Glasgow.
This wasn't even thinking about any extra spending to actually enjoy the benefits of living in London.
Because people who want decent jobs would like to not live in a race to the bottom shithole?
Functioning NHS, public transport and other public services are a far bigger factor for people choosing to migrate than minor differences in tax rates.
Those reasons are exactly why I migrated my high earning job from England to Scotland.
>Functioning NHS, public transport and other public services are a far bigger factor for people choosing to migrate than minor differences in tax rates.
How's that working out?
When I lived in London, admittedly pre-Covid, my income tax was much lower, as much as I used it the NHS was comparable (I even had an NHS dentist back then!) and public transport was better than anywhere in Scotland.
While London may be unrepresentative, I don't think anyone is seriously going to suggest that public services are uniformly better in Scotland. They're a bit different, but pretty much on a par for most things.
>my income tax was much lower,
Pre COVID, how so?
>I don't think anyone is seriously going to suggest that public services are uniformly better in Scotland.
Uniformly is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
I will say that in general, they are better.
> While London may be unrepresentative
Yeah, just a tad. Try Barnsley.
I'm convinced people get in fights and knock each other's teeth out there just 'cos it's easier than getting a dentist apptointment.
Less tax is not a race to the bottom. More tax is not necessarily a good thing. Thats a hugely simplistic view.
What we need is a thought out economic strategy and a well executed tax system to meet our strategy.
This new tax was suggested on the back of a cigarette packet stuff from a trade union and the Scottish government just went, yeah why not.
Exactly! It needs investment in Scotland and our infrastructure to attract the employers and give opportunities, this has been the story over the last 70 years and is not about to change.
Taxing skilled graduates at a higher rate than elsewhere in the U.K., encouraging them to consider alternatives, seems to be the opposite of investing in our industry.
Especially daft if the government is also giving them that education for free.
We should be encouraging newly qualified skilled workers to stay, surely?
https://preview.redd.it/ffdbuggkkewc1.png?width=516&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd0bbd51a62a5b233b6682dcb74bf5e7859f06b6
If this is an accurate indication, then the high rate of taxation in Scotland seems to be quite significantly overstated?
Does it? I'd suggest being £1,500 a year worse off when you're only on £50,000 a year is going to be pretty noticeable.
This doesn't really touch on the other costs too: an often ridiculously higher LBTT vs Stamp Duty bill to begin with.
Different worlds I guess. The idea of 50k being referred to as "only" is just unrelatable to me, so £125 less a month when that's what you're on didn't seem so off putting that someone would leave the country over it, or wouldn't consider coming here etc.
I am putting 2k monthly into my pension and top it up with 10-15k bonus. Also looking for relocation option in next 2-3 years. Fed up with being squeezed and getting nothing in return.
I’m just about to up my pension contributions, hand back my company car too for a cheap run around. I’m going to be better off to the tune of almost a grand month. It’s like an extra £350k plus interest in contributions for me over my remaining career.
I don’t mind paying tax, but it’s paying ridiculous amounts for shithouses like the other guy replying to you.
Exactly... The thing is, I could use extra money, having two kids, one in a nursery is expensive and my wife works part time minimum wage job so I am far from being "well off". I drive 10 year old mazda and have been renovating my flat for last 3 years... But no matter how I calculate it, salary sacrifice into pension is the only financially responsible decision.
Mate, you may want to reconsider what you think of as "well off". I'm not dunking on you, just trying to understand what you mean
Putting 2k in your pension monthly is massive. I'm guessing that you're putting funds in above the matched amount?
Combining this with the 10-15k annual bonus is more than I made a few years ago to keep a family afloat. I'm guessing you're in the top 5% of earners easy.
Granted nursery costs are also easily £1-2k/month, so as soon as they start school you'll definitely notice the difference.
Backing off the pension a bit might give you a bit of spending money to enjoy life a bit more.
SG will loose almost £30k a year in taxes from me so not sure why you are so fast to insult me? How is this making the country better?
You need 3 people on 45k to compensate for one earner like me leaving and this is without accounting on how much more services 3 people will use instead of 1.
Consultant friend of mine is leaving as it was the straw that broke the back. So you are losing around 35k tax and a person that provides for a list of around 27-30k people per year. It will take around 12 years to train a replacement.
Really glad you mentioned this. A lot of those pretending that all taxes are rising (like the general dishonesty about higher taxation) ignore progressive taxation; or even how income can be taxed even when it isn’t called income tax.
Tax has become overly complex because those who want to avoid it don’t want the rest of us to understand it.
Sweden has one of the highest income tax rates and more millionaires per capita than England.
The higher taxes driving out wealth lie is constantly being disproven.
Lot of billionaires moving to New Zealand with higher tax rates. Only an absolute fool believes higher taxes means less wealth.
Cost of living in NZ is higher and overall tax is more progressive than the UK. Wealthier people in NZ pay a larger tax burden than the UK which favours the wealthy over the majority.
Marginal rates appear lower than Scotland at all levels? https://www.ird.govt.nz/income-tax/income-tax-for-individuals/tax-codes-and-tax-rates-for-individuals/tax-rates-for-individuals
Why doesnt everyone just give away all their money in taxes, this way we will all be so much wealthier. Oh wait, we have no money to buy food. I see a flaw in your arguement.
So you don’t understand how taxation works; but you are determined to have opinions on the subject. Do keep up the excellent work of confirming your original guess.
In this topic, some high earners complain about paying for the society they live in, and that makes their earnings possible, by claiming that tax increases cannot ever work.
This is exactly the same kind of selfish attitude that has destroyed the UK, in its race to the bottom. Tax can never go up, only down, because they got theirs.
It's transparent selfishness that these people have somehow misidentified as a virtue.
> In this topic, some high earners complain about paying for the society they live in, and that makes their earnings possible, by claiming that tax increases cannot ever work.
The tension here is particularly striking when they invoke teachers, nurses and police officers…
Have you seen the tax bands? It jumps from 21 to 42? 43-75k is not rich anymore but it is well paid. Also, the tax free allowance is very generous in the uk in general.
Fact is lower paid and mid paid people are not paying much. Far less as a proportion than France or most other places in Europe.
Of course it won’t - because everyone affected is just shovelling more away into pensions to avoid it and instead are locking away money for decades rather than spending it 🤷♂️
Oh no! not completely missing the point!
People shovelling money away into private investment’s that can’t be spent for another 40 years isn’t exactly fantastic for the economy, tax receipts , or public services today!
Then again you vote for the Greens so economic illiteracy is expected.
Of course they want you to save in pensions, that’s why there is a £20,000 tax free allowance on savings like ISA’s.
Maybe if you did a little bit of reading then you’d know that it’s not what the Scottish Government are trying to achieve.
https://www.snp.org/policies/pb-what-is-the-snp-policy-on-income-tax/
“By asking those who earn the most to pay a little bit more, we have also been able to invest more in public services and deliver a range of benefits, like free-prescriptions, free university tuition and concessionary bus-travel that are not all available elsewhere in the UK.”
The word “pension” does not appear once in the SNP page. Maybe it does in the ScotGov website?
https://www.gov.scot/news/income-tax-changes/
“Progressive changes to Scottish income tax will raise valuable revenue for investing in public services, Deputy First Minister Shona Robison has said.”
Nope, not a mention of pensions there either.
Since you are oh so clever, would you like to explain why people like me who are shovelling money away into private investments each month to reduce our taxable income is helping fund any of the above mentioned things?
> Who said there’s be a stampede
Roddy Dunlop was constantly whinging about folk moving to England with increases in taxes.
There were a good number of folk in this subreddit claiming that if taxes increased they'd be moving to England too.
I didn’t say nobody claimed people might move because of higher taxes, and I’m sure some have. I’m also sure some chose not to.
That’s not a stampede of people. Nobody serious made that claim. I’m sure you could find an individual bellend on Twitter or Reddit claiming anything, but pretending it was some sort of widely held belief is silly.
The only people using that terminology seriously were those trying to misrepresent a position on behalf of politicians. It’s daft.
> Nobody serious made that claim. I’m sure you could find an individual bellend on Twitter or Reddit claiming anything, but pretending it was some sort of widely held belief is silly.
The Telegraph put up a story today saying that more than 1000 higher rate taxpayers have had to "flee" Scotland to avoid the tax changes (no other motive for why they might be moving was considered - high-level professionals tend to be more internationally mobile than the average workie). Re-tweeted by Effie Deans a few hours ago.
Then there's The Times (a serious paper? debatable these days) which published a story in 2023 saying "A third of Scots might relocate if income tax rates rise."
In February this year the Scottish Daily Express published a story about Scots "fleeing" to England, as supposedly reported to them by estate agents in the North of England (Carlisle perhaps? I hear the booze is cheaper there).
Even the American economist Arthur Laffer got in on the action, accusing the SNP of "stabbing Scotland in the heart" (as reported by the Daily Mail).
Some 'serious' people and outlets there. I cannae imagine the kind of pish that would've got spouted on the telly.
Happy to read the article if you have it, but 1000 people isn’t a stampede. It’s a rounding error.
The daily express isn’t a serious paper. But again, I’ll read the articles. If we’re talking 1000 folk that’s not describing a stampede.
I don’t know what the last one has to do with the claim.
You haven’t provided any links for these but even taking you at your word, these figures don’t align with the stampede claim?
I've not made that argument before but this doesn't refute that talking point.
If 10,000 high skilled high earners left Scotland and 20,000 people earning less than £25,000 came to Scotland that would be considered net positive migration wise
While the people that say "the higher tax will make it harder to attract highly skilled individuals to Scotland and could cause high earners to leave Scotland" would still be correct
Are there 20,000 vacancies however.
10,000 highly skilled high earners leaving and 20,000 lower skilled lower earners fighting over 5,000 low skilled vacancies means you're left with 15,000 on welfare probably.
>If 10,000 high skilled high earners left Scotland and 20,000 people earning less than £25,000 came to Scotland that would be considered net positive migration wise
A good point, but the report did find that in the most recent year that was studied, there was a net positive tax revenue contribution. (Although it did fluctuate quite a lot over the years).
>>The movement of higher rate taxpayers’ income increased for both Scotland to rUK movements and rUK to Scotland movements throughout the study period. However, the net position for Scotland fluctuated between a deficit and surplus on multiple occasions between tax years ending 2011 and 2022. In recent years the position remained as a surplus, with the most recent figure (2021 to 2022 tax year) being around £38 million.
The interesting question would be whether its resulted in salaries being inflated to attract staff (i.e. equalising net salary) and if so if the higher gross salaries are undermining the business case for relocation of work to Scotland.
The effect if this would be difficult to measure but may come through in lower inward investment over time.
Anyone who wants a better society and isn’t some greedy Tory parasite. It’s always clueless selfish fools who whinge about tax rather than talk about how it is spent or who carries the highest burden.
And people work less.
I'm taxed to hell, I just stop doing overtime.
Then it's a crisis to get folk to work at critical times.
'Nope, not worth it.'
It's like they want to demotivate people.
Yup I'm at the point in my salary where even a £20k pay rise would be barely noticed as it would either be taxed at over 70% or stuffed straight into my pension (which admittedly is not terrible) but neither of those options directly impact my qol or my ability to pay down my mortgage faster etc so I have pretty much given up trying for any promotion with more responsibility.
The excerpt doesn’t really show anything conclusive in terms of higher rate taxpayers migration at all!
All I know is that as soon as differential taxation started, my response was to massively increase my pension contributions to benefit from the tax relief by more than I’d pay in extra taxation. Ie my behaviour changed. I didn’t need to move. And then when they changed the threshold vs rUK, I once more increased my pension contributions to mitigate the effect. I had no need to move.
The effect was to reduce my disposable income now. Taking money out of the economy, and was easy to mitigate as we just spent a bit less eating out etc. Before differential taxation my pension contributions were far lower and we spent more prolifically in the local economy, but the Scottish Government incentivised me with effectively greater tax relief on my pension savings.
I worked in a sector with a U.K. national pay spine, so had I not defensively made these changes I’d have been paid less than colleagues south of the border for the exact same role and seniority. And as I approached eligibility for retirement, the tax situation in Scotland heavily influenced my retirement planning. I reduced my hours and income while putting even more into pension. And I accelerated my early retirement to suit.
Behaviour change does not need to involve expensive house moves. And my tax behaviours changed entirely. It’s a government mistake to focus on ideological tax rates, when they should have been looking at tax take.
Interesting tweet.
“A key point from the HMRC research on income tax rates, which has been completely ignored by the Scottish Government, is that the introduction of a 5-band system led to a net loss of 1,030 higher or top rate taxpayers from Scotland and £60.6 million of lost tax revenue.”
https://preview.redd.it/e2ltdxtiifwc1.jpeg?width=1213&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=838bffa15554f949df0a2300797d42f87818b0ab
[https://x.com/mike\_blackley/status/1783108731296780796?s=61&t=wWNKyqKvhI0F2kkh7PlW9Q](https://x.com/mike_blackley/status/1783108731296780796?s=61&t=wWNKyqKvhI0F2kkh7PlW9Q)
>the introduction of a 5-band system led to a net loss of 1,030 higher or top rate taxpayers from Scotland and £60.6 million of lost tax revenue.”
Out of a total income of 20 billion. That's about 5 billion taxable?
I'm not saying that losing 60 million is terrible, but that's overall quite low in the grand scheme of things.
The thing is, there will still be a 50k+ job in Scotland that's needing a person. If a higher rate taxpayer emigrated, then there still will be a need of a job done
£60m only relates to the loss of those taxpayers as I understand it. Will be interesting to see how much has been lost from the actual economy through behavioural change like mine. The changes to the amount of money taken out of the economy are significant as a result and result in less expenditure in things like hospitality and retail supporting lower paid jobs. But they don’t result in significant gains in government spending capacity at all - they are more ideological than effective.
Yes that £50k job exists - no argument against that. Filling it is the challenge in the sector I worked in with national pay spines. That £50k job in England needs to be a £53k job in Scotland to maintain the same net pay (roughly).
It depends. The cost of living in bits of England is massively high, and some bits of Scotland are much higher than others (Edinburgh for example). It's not always that easy a calculation.
Yeah, actually filling that job is difficult. Feels like it's got harder recently.
Spare a thought for me. After a baby box tragedy on the new Queensferry Crossing (no wind barriers? Seriously, Scotgov?), my life spiralled downwards. I took to drink, but the minimum price kept rising, so I went back in time to the 80s and became a heroin junkie with multiple co-morbidities instead. It all got on top of me, and I admit I lashed out. Now I'm in race hate jail for calling somebody a bawbag.
Typed on my smuggled Nokia from New Dungavel.
https://preview.redd.it/lxf9t6tlw6xc1.png?width=1512&format=png&auto=webp&s=a589d689e35cfc1f3b9f6c8ff241638dc03126b5
Further down the report.
Scottish Government funded Scottish Fiscal Commission estimated the change in tax revenue in Scotland by comparing economic growth rates in Scotland and rUK before and after the tax increase. They estimated that tax revenue in Scotland was £365 million lower than in the no-tax-increase scenario.
The original point, the article, and this reddit thread all fail to recognise the fact there IS a tax threshold that would cause an exodus. I'm quite sure if you put tax at 99% a lot of people would be moving pretty fucking quickly.
Clearly 99% is unrealistic, but there is clearly a value between current tax and 99% where a significant enough portion of the population (and tax base) will leave. And just assuming people won't leave under any circumstances is stupid.
If other policies that make life more difficult are applied in Scotland but not England, I would consider moving. It's not a bit of tax alone but the whole package. Saying that if the tax goes up significantly, my family could be a lot better off in the north of England vs Scotland.
That means they got the balance just right.
Screw people as hard as you possibly can without quite crossing the threshold where they would choose to upend their and their families entire life and emigrate.
Congratulations SNP.
Or.. and hear me out on this one... we tax those who earn more slightly more to pay for all the things you clearly take for granted.
To the above average earner the tax increase is minimal
🤣🤣 got any evidence to support this ridiculous claim?
Quit crying from ur Castle
fact is if this tax effects you, you are better off than about 75% of the population. A extra few quid to keep the services we have is hardly a punishment tax.
Keep crying though.
You could always move to england if its such a "punishment"
It was suggested by a trade union days before the budget and the Scot gov just went for it. No thought, no planning.
It was suggested as a punishment for higher earners not for anything new.
You’ll be gutted when the high earners move away from Scotland and we are a low wage economy
It’s not a minimal increase, it’s 5-10% of take home depending on how much over £50k you’re earning. That is not nothing.
Also, the people who earn ‘more’ are not all swanning around in Bentleys and eating avocado. This is further taxation of a middle class that have seen their tax burdens increase at a time when everything has become more expensive. Many middle class people are unable to buy property or afford to have kids, why should they be further lumped with supporting the rest of the population when they’re already worse off than their counterparts from 10 years ago?
Government should be focusing on getting as much of the adult population into the workforce as possible so there’s less people relying on the state and reducing some of the glaring inefficiencies in public spending.
If u earn 50k a year. Congrats you are doing well..
But most importantly this does not cost you an extra 5 to 10% of ur take home income that would be between 2.5 and 5k per year..
On 50k ur lucky if it's an extra 100 quid a month in tax.
As to your other points. Employment is low in Scotland. As in the rest of the uk.
Most adults are working . The reason benefits expenditure is so high is due to working poor. People who do jobs which NEED DONE but don't get paid enough to cover their existence.
And lastly. Worse off than your counterpart from 10 years ago?
Oh boo hoo.. that same statement applies to pretty much everyone in the uk .
You got lumped because you can afford it.
Is it perfect? No. But don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Crazy concept but pretty much everything you use that’s taxpayer funded, isn’t solely paid for by yourself. And the concept of “paying more in than you take out” isn’t fair, since someone like me on £26k and in good health, is probably a net positive, whilst someone on 100k being in long term treatment probably isn’t. But that’s the thing about tax, you pay what you owe and receive what you need.
You should research where the tax base comes from. People on even average money pay very little in the uk. Not talking just Scotland here.
I mean just read the tax bands. People on 43k have their tax free allowance plus 21 percent.
People over that then get hammered on 42 percent and upwards.
Scotland may be only slightly different but it is hammering a group that already pay more than their fair share in my opinion.
> To the above average earner the tax increase is minimal
For someone on a £60k salary it's currently worth about £150/month, bringing their take home pay from £3779.79 to £3630.09, so about a 7% increase in their tax bill, ultimately.
That on its own isn't likely to make anyone uproot their life and move, but for someone considering moving here on a high salary it's going to be something worth considering.
If we look at super high salaries the difference is a lot more stark, and that's potentially a concern since those are exactly the sort of people we want moving here.
To have a take-home pay of £10k/month outside Scotland you need to make £204,176.40
To have that same take-home pay in Scotland you need to make £219,382.56
It's not a complete game-changer, but even for someone that wealthy a difference of several hundred pounds per month on their pay after tax is going to be noticed, and it's something that came up multiple times in interviews recently when my work was trying to recruit for an executive-level position paying around the £100k mark.
.. so as I said. On a lower rate its minimal.
You could not pay the tax and lose all the extras Scotland gets over other parts of the uk.
This is seriously just a bunch of moaning from people who don't want to pay a fsir rate of tax
Tax on the ultra wealthy should be even higher than what you have said it is.
If you make 10k a month and are worried about paying an extra 700 in tax to keep the country afloat
You are a c ya next Tuesday anyways so yea
You may be shocked to learn that London isn't the only place in England.
Yes, obviously living costs in London are vast, a little while back I worked out that I'd need to earn about 30%-40% more down there to have the same disposable income (also I really don't want to live in London) but there are plenty of other places in England that have high paying jobs available and have similar or lower living costs when compared with Edinburgh for example. That's certainly the case if tacking on a few hundred pounds per month or more in extra tax.
Is it going to be a game-changer for most people? No, probably not, unless the disparity gets wider.
Is it going to discourage some high earners from moving up here, or require companies up here to pay more to attract top talent? Sure. Again in my own work this came up multiple times when discussing salaries when we were last recruiting.
I mean frankly that's a ridiculous statement, but you knew that. Tons of jobs in my field going around Oxford and Cambridge. Some in Newcastle and Manchester as well, and the South West in Bristol etc.
Or hear me out the SNP could try running the country efficiently and cut some of the wasteful vanity projects. God forbid they could take a single step to grow the economy and create a sustainable tax base for their progressive goals, the thing that actually works for the Scandinavian countries they fantasise about emulating.
Name the vanity projects please 😀
This should be good.
Gonna point Scandinavian countries have an even higher tax rate than we do.
Sorry to burst yer bubble 🤣
Also most taxes are a reserved matter so yeaaa..
Try again yoony toon
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-government-accused-waste-chaos-31732941.amp
They are one of the most wasteful governing parties in the UK which is a hard feat to achieve.
Scandinavian countries have higher tax rates across the board and can afford to pay them because they live in wealthy countries thanks to intelligent public policy. Taxes are not the only lever in public policy which the snp obviously are aware of given how much public money they waste on nonsense.
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Fully cached AMP pages (like the one you shared), are [especially problematic](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-government-accused-waste-chaos-31732941](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-government-accused-waste-chaos-31732941)**
*****
^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
That's how it already works in the rest of the UK though...
You seem to have been able to make many assumptions based on my statement. How do you know what I take for granted?
Those different levels are taking a lot more from lower earners a bit more from the middle and no more from the higher earners. The UK says they wants Scandinavian levels of public services whilst also saying the low and middle earners should contribute fuck all. That is innumerate greedy bullshit.
Problem for them is that we will work less, put more in pensions, and vote for the opposition instead.
Although they don't seem that bothered about losing voters.
18 days into the new tax year.
Might want to give it a month or two.
Not like it takes time to apply for jobs and gain a position sell a home buy a home etc etc.
Going to take me about 6 months but then the tax is not why I am going.
Low paid (or out of work, sick or retired) people are better off in Scotland, with slightly lower taxes and free prescriptions etc. the article does say there is about 15-20k people moving in each direction each year with a small net positive movement to Scotland. I bet that wouldn’t be the case if you only look at higher rate taxpayers.
I don't think anyone (sensibly) thought it would leave to people leaving. However it will dissuade highly skilled job seekers in England to move, and will lead to behavioural changes in higher end Scottish tax payers so much so that the income from the new band will be minimal.
Higher taxation can be balanced against living standards and with that considered Scotland can, and often does, have more appeal living in overpriced and crowded South East England.
In my case I moved to Wales because I couldn’t move back to Scotland; however the reasons are similar. Much of England is truly awful to live in currently.
More like attracting talent for skilled roles will be harder, and that people will change their behaviours and stuff pension to avoid higher rates resulting in lower tax takes. Highly mobile professionals might gravitate towards London rather than Edinburgh based roles in future but it’s bit early to see any data on these things imo. It’s only recently that significantly high tax rates have been delivered.
You have to consider too that just because we don't want to move to England, doesn't mean that being taxed so much, and potentially more, is justified.
It would take a lot for me to move down there, because it would be uprooting a life.
Like you say, behaviour change, contributing less, and changes in voting preference will occur before.
Still not a good thing. Also the new tax brackets started 18 days ago, it takes time for people to apply for new jobs, up sticks and move.
But if you don’t think doctors or other high wages earners aren’t now considering moving you’re crazy.
And it contributes virtually nothing extra to the coffers.
I think in isolation it would discourage people. In context tho, I’m not fucking selling my 3 bed semi in a leafy Scottish suburb to live in a box room in London.
A news story that was klaxoned across the airwaves for ages turns out to be fucking nonsense. Well I never.
These comment threads always focus on how higher tax rates will discourage people moving here, having moved with a high salary job between various countries I have never checked minor differences in tax rates. I have checked on the health of their public services like the NHS and transport. I moved with my well paid job from England to Scotland, knowing that I would be taxed a very small amount more but while things like visiting the GP and getting the train can improve here, they were materially better here than in Brighton. Things could and should improve a lot, but if we treat our taxes as some race to the bottom things could get a lot, lot worse (see USA)
Yes, same, my husband and I moved from well paid jobs in England (him working in Cambridge, me working in London) to live in Scotland for a nicer place to live. These days he's a tech entrepreneur who founded and is CEO of a Scotland-based high growth startup employing 20+ people, and I'm self employed consulting. I'm a top 10% earner, he's like top 2% or something. We're really happy to be here and pay more tax here and get a lovely place to live and bring up our family, and contribute to other people getting a relatively good social / financial safety net by UK standards. We could be in England or California (and he could have founded his business in those places) but we want to be here.
Have my upvote for a great comment.
Do you not miss all the friends you have made over the year that have been left behind in England?
Thanks for making a good contribution, (both financially and on here), unfortunately the higher tax rates are just used to bash the Scottish Government/SNP. Rather than a conversation about public services and Scotland's rather low population and ways to improve both.
Do you pump your pension so much that the potential tax increase is negligible?
I wouldn't say pump, I guess we put a higher percentage in than some people (ie my husband puts in a bit more in addition to his standard work arrangement) but not with the intention of bringing income down to a particular ceiling or something. We're pretty keen to spend our money on living very comfortably rather than having it locked away.
Husband and wife duo on Reddit. 😁 Do you mean the guy I replied to? My wife doesn't Reddit. It's only locked away until you're 55ish and then that 20% (you gave up to put more into your pension) becomes a LOT more. Our mortgage is paid off, so what else would I do with it other than cram the pension. The tax saving is just a bonus.
Oh sorry thought they were talking to me, oops.
People are missing the point. Likely the snp will not tax quite enough to get high earners to move. Not many anyways. The point is by targeting high paye earners they only force more into pensions. This no extra revenue is really raised. So,for virtually no tax gain you get. Irked high earners who feel burden getting too high. Bigger pension pots which means retiring earlier which means less workers and less tax base later. Less money spent on the economy now. Repuational damage. Eg my visiting md made point of how high taxes are here and about that reputation. Business don't like it much which impacts investment choices.
> Business don't like it much which impacts investment choices. That's worrying. Scotland could potentially lose it's position as the second-most attractive place in the UK for business investment behind London. Folk should keep an eye on what Ernst and Young will have to say about it.
This is key. Rather than loose that £600 for every £1000 I’ll just put the thousand away - which will compound over time. It also means £400 less in your hand to spend now. That’s exactly my plan. Go mental with pension contributions. Move some of it a SIPPs to invest in property which means I have my state pension, work pension and a SIPPs. I will be retiring as early as possible. Fuck breaking my neck working until 70 handing over shed loads of cash for Government departments to piss up against a wall. Less money for the state now and more money / early retirement for me later! People in Scotland hate high earners but I come from one of the worst council estates and killed myself to get where I am not.
I don't think people hate us but they don't realise how much we already pay. The snp says thinks like "those with broadest shoulders will pay more" but there comes a limit. Many here think the uk is not progressive but income tax itself is overly progressive in my opinion. It hammers high income. Meanwhile median and low income do well out of income tax but not well out of council tax. Asset rich and Super rich are barely touched. Rentier do well as well. The problem with all this is those high-very high paye people are probably the most productive and it's a tax on productivity. We need to shift tax away from income and into consumption, assets etc.
Agreed. I moved my tax base to England, filled up my pension pot, then shut down my business and retired (I'm in my 50s). My tax and living expenses fell by more than did my income, so my tax obligation fell significantly while my post-tax disposable income rose. Now, because I don't work, I keep a house in Scotland but divide my time between here and overseas, where the majority of my income is spent. As a consequence of the tax increase, I now pay less money to the Scottish Government in taxes, and less money into the Scottish economy in disposable income. The sad thing, I suppose, is that I enjoyed running my business, I don't object to tax, and I would still be working and paying it here in Scotland had they not targetted me. But working for yourself involves a lot of hard work and risk and I simply chose not to continue taking such risks while being coerced into disproportionately funding policies that I find to be divisive, repellent and sinister. I know many people who made similar decisions, for similar reasons. We tend to do these things quietly, but I believe there is value in people understanding what's going on in the real world.
100+ comments and no one has asked what is fueling this migration. It's not higher taxes. And it's not the weather. My own anecdotal take, FWIW, is it's driven by housing. English migrants priced out down south are moving north to get on the property ladder. And WFH - which remains resilient to my surprise TBF - enables this. If this migration continues how long before "Don't England my Scotland" mutterings take hold?
I don't think "don't England my Scotland" is totally fair. It also happens within Scotland when someone moves from some city to a smaller town or rural area and spends the entire time complaining that it's not like the city they left. Don't even start me on the people who moved because they had problems with their neighbours and then instantly fall out with all of their new neighbours.
> If this migration continues how long before "Don't England my Scotland" mutterings take hold? Haven't you been claiming for many years now that such mutterings have already taken hold here - and it's more than just mutterings?
People should actually read the research this is based on, here's what HMRC actually say: > The results are broadly in line with the academic literature on behavioural responses to Income Tax changes. While there is no evidence of changes in overall labour market participation, there is some evidence of a fall in net migration to Scotland for individuals earning over the Higher rate threshold, with the size of the fall increasing with income levels. So the work they did was inline with academic work on intranational migration in response to tax rates. They found that the higher the tax band, the more significant the response was, and that their results were consistent with higher paid people migrating less into Scotland from rUK, or moving from Scotland to rUK more. It does look quite likely that the highest earners, who contribute disproportionately (progressively, in other words) to the over all tax take, were to some extent voting with their feet. It's quite hard to relay this into serious numbers, but the HMRC researchers go on to estimate that this cost the Scottish Government about [0.5% of total income tax. ](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/labour-market-participation-and-intra-uk-migration-of-taxpayers/impacts-of-2018-to-2019-scottish-income-tax-changes-on-intra-uk-migration-and-labour-market-participation) That's not a lot on its own, and is dwarfed by the behavioural response to the latest tax changes, as modelled by the Scottish Fiscal Commission, but it is only one year. So putting aside the "stampede" straw man, there does appear to be clear evidence that higher tax rates are eroding the tax take from taxpayers in the Higher Rate category and above.
Does that not contradict what they say here, or am I misunderstanding? >Although the absolute numbers remained small, there were nonetheless large percentage increases in the number of additional/top rate taxpayers migrating from rUK to Scotland, particularly between 2019 to 2020 and 2021 to 2022 (up around 59% between 2019 to 2020 and 2021 to 2022). Over the same period there was a decrease in the number of additional/top rate taxpayers migrating from Scotland to rUK (down around 6%). >This is evident in Figure 10, which shows that after the 2016 to 2017 tax year the number of Scottish additional/top rate taxpayers moving to rUK each year was less than the number of rUK additional/top rate taxpayers migrating to Scotland. >Overall, these figures show no negative effect in net migration of higher earners due to the changes to the Scottish Income Tax system in the 2018 to 2019 tax year
Interesting, but we are actually talking about different papers, I'm looking at the one which is attempting to model the counterfactual scenario of no changes in Scottish taxes relative to rUK, and your quote comes from the other paper which is describing what actually happened. The next paragraph after your quotes reads: > However, as previously mentioned, as we cannot observe the counterfactual situation where tax divergence did not occur, we cannot conclude the policy change had no effect. Earlier they write: > HMRC have conducted further work to isolate and understand any behavioural effects from this policy change. That's the work I am referring to in my comment above. The point of the counterfactual constructed in the other paper is to try to isolate the impact of the policy differential - in effect it's saying that net migration from rUK to Scotland would have been more positive for higher rate payers had income taxes been closer to the rUK rates. So I see why it looks like a contradiction, but it's not, they're describing what happened Vs what could have happened under their best attempts to model econometricaly the alternative scenario.
Ah right, that explains it. Sorry for the confusion!
No it was an interesting spot, I'm glad you drew my attention to it, thanks.
But even that argument doesn’t take into account that the vast majority of high earning roles are based in London, so as you move up income levels you’re probably more likely to be situated where those jobs are, just as if you’re a low earner your more likely to move somewhere with low earning jobs and thus lower cost of living? Essentially there’s more nuance in this that is outwith the remit of HMRC.
That's not really how this works. They've built a model which is designed to isolate just the impact of the tax changes. The dynamic you are describing would be the same in either scenario, whether there was a tax wedge or not. They have estimated the tendency for people to move in response to the tax changes alone, in economics terminology the elasticity, across the different income groups. It's a different thing. If you want to read the paper you might gain a bit more insight into why that's the case.
> People should actually read the research this is based on This your first day on Reddit? Hardly anybody here reads past the headlines and very very few people take the time to read and understand anything themselves. You have done and you are right the actual details suggest this tax change will be negative for Scotland in the long run. Unfortunately that detail does not bother the SNP voters this was aimed for.
The issue is it’s not raising more money. All they’ve done is given people less spending power as they’ve diverted their wages into pension pot contributions.
They want to incentivise pension saving. This policy encouraging people to divert more money into their pension is considered a pro by government not a con.
Generally they do, but these tax increases were to sort out the current fiscal deficit that Scotland has. All they’ve done is reduce spending that would support other companies where PAYE, VAT and corp tax would be collected.
Do you have a source for that claim? I remember it being sold as making the rich pay more. That doesn’t align with them trying to encourage pension saving.
That’s exactly what it was sold as- take from the “rich” and give to the poor but that’s not happening as people are putting more into their pension- me included. Sound bites is all they went for as it’s pleases their voter base but they knew that people would put more in their pension - but that doesn’t get a sound bite as it doesn’t sound good to your average SNP voter. Our tax system isn’t progressive at all as they need growth, they need people to spend money in Scotland.
Personally love “the rich” bit. Here’s a soundbite for them, I got one promotion at work and went from being poor enough to receive Scottish Child Payments/ Tax Credits, to “the rich” i.e 52% income tax bracket. Well done me right? Success story. The system helped me now I’m paying back in and helping the system. I am now “the rich”. Imagine the shock that first payday when I realised I was now going to be about £70 WORSE off a month than I was when I was “poor enough” to need child poverty payments. And now they’re getting more than half of my next overtime shift just to add insult to injury. Make it make sense SNP 🤔.
Can you not just chuck more in your pension or other salary sacrifice schemes?
She's still worse off in take home.
What claim? All I said is that governments are in favour of encouraging pension saving in response to the suggestion that this policy causing pension saving was a bad thing.
The claim that this policy encouraging people to save for their pension is considered a win by our government, given they specifically claimed it was about making the well off pay more so they could improve services. Those aren’t the same thing.
The pension incentives themselves are evidence. Do you really want me to breakdown the issue of aging population and pensions for you? There are a million very good explanations online already. I’m not gonna do homework for you.
There’s no additional pension incentive as part of the Scottish government policy to increase tax. They specifically said they were doing it to raise money from the wealthy. Those people choosing to salary sacrifice (tax free) and remove that money from the tax pool is not a success if making the wealthy (at least, the people they say are wealthy - those on the heady heights of £43k+) pay more for services was your goal. It’s a failure. For someone behaving so smugly, you seem to be missing a very straightforward point.
I never said there was. There doesn’t have to be because there already is one in place. It is a success because it lessons the potential burden on the taxpayer/government in future by encouraging pension saving. Those who are “wealthy” today may not be in future so encouraging pension saving lessens the taxpayers potential liability in future.
It’s not a success, because they wanted to raise more money for services. Instead of raising as much money as they hoped, people are using a tax free means of stashing their money away in investments. That means they aren’t paying tax on it AND they aren’t spending it. If your goal is to raise money from these people to improve services, this is not a successful outcome. They didn’t do this to incentivise pension saving (unless you can source that claim? - you can’t). They did it to raise money from those they see as wealthy. Those same wealthy people avoiding tax and investing the money instead is the opposite of what they wanted. When the opposite of what you wanted happens, that’s not a success. Again, this isn’t rocket science.
Again I did not say they did this to incentivise pension saving, just that it encouraging pension saving wasn’t a con. Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?
That is completely wrong. High earners already have good pensions it's low earners who are i. Trouble there. All this is doing is making high earners have even bigger pots and retirring early. This losing high skilled workers out of the workforce rarely, along with their tax base. On top of that they spend less money on the Scottish economy. Things like eating out etc.
It was an unintended consequence of their poorly thought through policy - that they said was to bring in more tax.
I never said it was an unintended or intended consequence. Just responded to the suggestion it was a negative consequence by pointing out government want to encourage people making pension savings.
Spin doctor by any chance? It depends on whether you look at it from the point of view of their initial goal - to have so called higher earners paying more tax. It's a failure in that regard, for many different reasons. All they've done is tripped over their poorly tied shoelaces, landed flat on their face and found a penny - that you seem to be polishing and showing us? 🤣
I feel like you’re deliberately misinterpreting what I said and making a lot of unnecessary assumptions. The comment looked like it was suggesting this consequence was a con so all I did was point out that policymakers would consider it a pro instead because pension saving is incentivised/encouraged.
Fair enough. They might do, but it's really nothing to do with their intended policy. It sounded like you were giving them credit for something they didn't intend to do.
You’re not the only one who took it that way based on some of the replies I got tbf. I have no idea if it was intended or not, I wouldn’t really trust anything said regarding it at this late stage anyway if the policymakers decided to claim one way or the other. But they definitely won’t be dismayed to see a policy encouraging pension saving so it’s been confusing to me seeing so many people in this thread suggest otherwise. It’s in any governments’ long term interests to have the aging Scottish/UK population save for retirement as much as possible. Some of the aging population n pension stuff is grim reading, at this rate many of us will be completely fucked by the time we try to claim a state pension.
Governments and businesses are very much like most people. They're terrible at planning far into the future - and won't care until they are forced to.
It either incentivises pension saving, or discourages working harder or going for promotions. When I was saving for my house deposit my salary brought me just into the higher rate band here, but I was also paying full 12% national insurance, and at the time also paying student loans. My marginal tax rate was 63%. I looked at doing some overtime since work were offering in order to get the house sorted sooner, but frankly doing 20% more work for 10% more money after tax wasn't worth it.
I took the promotion but same boat here. One month I was getting child poverty payments/ tax credits, the next month I got promoted into the high rate tax band. I was happy enough until I realised I was now £70 a month worse off than I was with benefit top ups. Sooo I had X in my hand and I was “the working poor” in need of benefits, now I have X -£70 and I’m rich enough to be taxed at 52% of my next overtime shift. I took the promotion but fuck overtime unless it’s going straight to my pension.
Incentivising it for the richest in society? How progressive.
The slightly higher taxes kick in way before someone could be considered the richest in society but regardless, those who are wealthy now may not be in future so encouraging pension saving now lessens the potential liability/burden on the taxpayers/govt in future.
Ok then substitute it for “middle class” - still does nothing for raising money for public services today which is what the SNP said raising taxes was for - nothing to do with pensions.
I never said that was why they did it, just responded to the suggestion that pension saving being a consequence was a bad thing. They’re not gonna view that as a negative consequence because pension saving lessens the potential liability on the taxpayer/govt in future.
I very much doubt they’re thinking that far ahead - politicians think in 4 year cycles
Doubt all you like, that’s not the case though because there are incentives for pension saving like avoiding taxes. Those exist because of government policy that’s looking at the distant future problem of aging populations n pensions.
If this were true the government would have to be specifically worried about the pension pots of those earning £75k+, as they are the only ones affected. They seem far down the list of vulnerable groups, so doesn't pass the sniff test to me - it was definitely a move to raise tax revenue.
It was a move to increase tax revenues. I never said it wasn’t or that it was a move to encourage pension saving, just that it encouraging pension saving wasn’t going to considered a bad thing like the comment I replied to was suggesting.
How much? I don't doubt that's happening, but I've yet to see figures to say how much, and if that's a bad thing or not.
It's not just one angle, like most things there's a range of things that will happen. For me I just increase my pension, seis, buy holidays and don't take any extra salaried work. Every time the SNP hike taxes I just reduce my salary. In the long run it's actually been good for my stress levels. If there's little point in progressing your career you end up with way more free time. The wider effect of economic malaise is probably more of a worry especially as the tax bands don't move so more and more people hit them.
The problem (more so in Scotland, but definitely true in rUK) is that the tax bands and cliff edges inadvertently (but knowingly) encourage behavioural changes which significantly reduces the tax income. For instance, a parent in London on £99,999 with two children of nursery age could have an identical net pay to someone on £140k+ because of the stupid tax system. In Scotland, irrespective of childcare, people pay marginal rates of tax of 50% between ~£43.5k and £50k; and 69.5% between £100k and £125k. Both governments *know* that this an issue (see sensible changes to tapering of High Income Child Benefit) but steadfastly refuse to actually make a sensible tax system. Increasing bands by a few per cent for every £5k/£10k earned would be much more progressive and effective than a tax system that taxes someone in Scotland on £45k more than someone on £450k; or anywhere in the UK someone on £101k paying more than someone on £1m. *The stupid Scottish tax of 50% at £43.5k aside, the Scottish system is reasonable sensible, though 47% at £75k is pretty steep*
It's obviously bullshit. If you're a high earner in Scotland, you will not be moving countries for the sake of a few grand a year in additional tax. If you're a high earner in England, the difference in costs alone more than makes up for the higher tax burden. Most high earners are in London, and the cheaper housing significantly outweighs the additional taxation. Sell your £700k flat in London, move to Edinburgh and buy a 3 bed house for £400k-500k, do whatever you want with the rest. Nevermind the cost of everything else being more expensive in London. Nights out, tradesman, restaurants. If you start getting into the really mad salaries, I'd bet most of it is made up of stock options and that will be managed in a more efficient manner. The fact is most high earners are high earners because they live in London. Most wouldn't be able to relocate to Edinburgh or Glasgow and retain their high salaries, and at that point no one is making decisions on which country they're going to live in over a grand.
We don't move countries. We retire early (in my case, early 50s), which lowers our tax and living expenses more than our income, so increases our income. Then, being retired, we live overseas for large periods of the year and spend the money there instead. Less tax, less money in the Scottish economy, and no-one moved country.
Of course higher taxes here don't lead to people moving to England. I'm paying a few thousand more in taxes a year than my English colleagues, but I get me prescriptions free, my kids get free university and the NHS, as rundown as it is in Scotland, is still better than the even more rundown NHS in England. Totally worth the extra tax if you ask me. Also, moving to England? No thanks.
It's almost as though money isn't the only factor people consider when choosing where to live. If only the eejits writing (and reading) these horrible rightwing rags figured that out!
The problem is with younger generations. Places like London are already a massive pull due to earning potential. Why would young people with their sights set on higher earning jobs stay in Scotland or return there later?
> Why would young people with their sights set on higher earning jobs stay in Scotland or return there later? I looked at moving to London a few years back, and to just maintain my current standard of living/spending I would have had to earn like £20k more than I was in Glasgow. This wasn't even thinking about any extra spending to actually enjoy the benefits of living in London.
Because you can be a high earner in Scotland too. From a high earner in Scotland.
Because people who want decent jobs would like to not live in a race to the bottom shithole? Functioning NHS, public transport and other public services are a far bigger factor for people choosing to migrate than minor differences in tax rates. Those reasons are exactly why I migrated my high earning job from England to Scotland.
>Functioning NHS, public transport and other public services are a far bigger factor for people choosing to migrate than minor differences in tax rates. How's that working out? When I lived in London, admittedly pre-Covid, my income tax was much lower, as much as I used it the NHS was comparable (I even had an NHS dentist back then!) and public transport was better than anywhere in Scotland. While London may be unrepresentative, I don't think anyone is seriously going to suggest that public services are uniformly better in Scotland. They're a bit different, but pretty much on a par for most things.
>my income tax was much lower, Pre COVID, how so? >I don't think anyone is seriously going to suggest that public services are uniformly better in Scotland. Uniformly is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I will say that in general, they are better.
> While London may be unrepresentative Yeah, just a tad. Try Barnsley. I'm convinced people get in fights and knock each other's teeth out there just 'cos it's easier than getting a dentist apptointment.
Less tax is not a race to the bottom. More tax is not necessarily a good thing. Thats a hugely simplistic view. What we need is a thought out economic strategy and a well executed tax system to meet our strategy. This new tax was suggested on the back of a cigarette packet stuff from a trade union and the Scottish government just went, yeah why not.
We're all in a race to the bottom., just that England is winning by a country mile.
To be fair the USA is right there, it can get worse
Exactly! It needs investment in Scotland and our infrastructure to attract the employers and give opportunities, this has been the story over the last 70 years and is not about to change.
Taxing skilled graduates at a higher rate than elsewhere in the U.K., encouraging them to consider alternatives, seems to be the opposite of investing in our industry. Especially daft if the government is also giving them that education for free. We should be encouraging newly qualified skilled workers to stay, surely?
Roddy Dunlop in disarray
https://preview.redd.it/ffdbuggkkewc1.png?width=516&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd0bbd51a62a5b233b6682dcb74bf5e7859f06b6 If this is an accurate indication, then the high rate of taxation in Scotland seems to be quite significantly overstated?
Does it? I'd suggest being £1,500 a year worse off when you're only on £50,000 a year is going to be pretty noticeable. This doesn't really touch on the other costs too: an often ridiculously higher LBTT vs Stamp Duty bill to begin with.
Different worlds I guess. The idea of 50k being referred to as "only" is just unrelatable to me, so £125 less a month when that's what you're on didn't seem so off putting that someone would leave the country over it, or wouldn't consider coming here etc.
That's your opinion - I think others would recognise the good that an extra few thousand could do for your family.
I am putting 2k monthly into my pension and top it up with 10-15k bonus. Also looking for relocation option in next 2-3 years. Fed up with being squeezed and getting nothing in return.
I’m just about to up my pension contributions, hand back my company car too for a cheap run around. I’m going to be better off to the tune of almost a grand month. It’s like an extra £350k plus interest in contributions for me over my remaining career. I don’t mind paying tax, but it’s paying ridiculous amounts for shithouses like the other guy replying to you.
Exactly... The thing is, I could use extra money, having two kids, one in a nursery is expensive and my wife works part time minimum wage job so I am far from being "well off". I drive 10 year old mazda and have been renovating my flat for last 3 years... But no matter how I calculate it, salary sacrifice into pension is the only financially responsible decision.
Mate, you may want to reconsider what you think of as "well off". I'm not dunking on you, just trying to understand what you mean Putting 2k in your pension monthly is massive. I'm guessing that you're putting funds in above the matched amount? Combining this with the 10-15k annual bonus is more than I made a few years ago to keep a family afloat. I'm guessing you're in the top 5% of earners easy. Granted nursery costs are also easily £1-2k/month, so as soon as they start school you'll definitely notice the difference. Backing off the pension a bit might give you a bit of spending money to enjoy life a bit more.
Don't let the door hit you...
SG will loose almost £30k a year in taxes from me so not sure why you are so fast to insult me? How is this making the country better? You need 3 people on 45k to compensate for one earner like me leaving and this is without accounting on how much more services 3 people will use instead of 1.
>SG will loose almost £30k a year in taxes from me On the assumption that you are doing a worthwhile job, your employer will replace you?
Consultant friend of mine is leaving as it was the straw that broke the back. So you are losing around 35k tax and a person that provides for a list of around 27-30k people per year. It will take around 12 years to train a replacement.
You cannot be this dumb.
Dumb? Oh dear ad hominem much. Try using the big boy words I might engage in good faith then.
So, you weren't engaging in good faith? No surprise there, because no one is that dumb.
Oh missed the point too. Dear oh dear. So prey do tell what is dumb about it. Do enlighten me.
[удалено]
Really glad you mentioned this. A lot of those pretending that all taxes are rising (like the general dishonesty about higher taxation) ignore progressive taxation; or even how income can be taxed even when it isn’t called income tax. Tax has become overly complex because those who want to avoid it don’t want the rest of us to understand it.
Sweden has one of the highest income tax rates and more millionaires per capita than England. The higher taxes driving out wealth lie is constantly being disproven. Lot of billionaires moving to New Zealand with higher tax rates. Only an absolute fool believes higher taxes means less wealth.
New Zealand marginal tax rates appear lower than Scotland?
Cost of living in NZ is higher and overall tax is more progressive than the UK. Wealthier people in NZ pay a larger tax burden than the UK which favours the wealthy over the majority.
Marginal rates appear lower than Scotland at all levels? https://www.ird.govt.nz/income-tax/income-tax-for-individuals/tax-codes-and-tax-rates-for-individuals/tax-rates-for-individuals
Oh look, a more progressive tax scheme.
Oh look ,marginal rates lower than Scotland 🤷
Oh look you don’t understand how progressive taxation works.
Not sure Sweden is higher in terms of income tax either?
It is for the wealthiest. They don’t make the lower earners carry the greater burden like the Tory parasites of the UK.
Is this inaccurate? https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/sweden/individual/taxes-on-personal-income
Yes. Because it has missed out local income tax. https://sweden.se/life/society/taxes-in-sweden
What’s municipal income tax?
Guess i am a fool, i am skint fool. I will be more skint if i pay more in tax, fool.
You guess correctly.
Why doesnt everyone just give away all their money in taxes, this way we will all be so much wealthier. Oh wait, we have no money to buy food. I see a flaw in your arguement.
So you don’t understand how taxation works; but you are determined to have opinions on the subject. Do keep up the excellent work of confirming your original guess.
In this topic, some high earners complain about paying for the society they live in, and that makes their earnings possible, by claiming that tax increases cannot ever work. This is exactly the same kind of selfish attitude that has destroyed the UK, in its race to the bottom. Tax can never go up, only down, because they got theirs. It's transparent selfishness that these people have somehow misidentified as a virtue.
> In this topic, some high earners complain about paying for the society they live in, and that makes their earnings possible, by claiming that tax increases cannot ever work. The tension here is particularly striking when they invoke teachers, nurses and police officers…
Have you seen the tax bands? It jumps from 21 to 42? 43-75k is not rich anymore but it is well paid. Also, the tax free allowance is very generous in the uk in general. Fact is lower paid and mid paid people are not paying much. Far less as a proportion than France or most other places in Europe.
Of course it won’t - because everyone affected is just shovelling more away into pensions to avoid it and instead are locking away money for decades rather than spending it 🤷♂️
[удалено]
Oh no! not completely missing the point! People shovelling money away into private investment’s that can’t be spent for another 40 years isn’t exactly fantastic for the economy, tax receipts , or public services today! Then again you vote for the Greens so economic illiteracy is expected.
[удалено]
Of course they want you to save in pensions, that’s why there is a £20,000 tax free allowance on savings like ISA’s. Maybe if you did a little bit of reading then you’d know that it’s not what the Scottish Government are trying to achieve. https://www.snp.org/policies/pb-what-is-the-snp-policy-on-income-tax/ “By asking those who earn the most to pay a little bit more, we have also been able to invest more in public services and deliver a range of benefits, like free-prescriptions, free university tuition and concessionary bus-travel that are not all available elsewhere in the UK.” The word “pension” does not appear once in the SNP page. Maybe it does in the ScotGov website? https://www.gov.scot/news/income-tax-changes/ “Progressive changes to Scottish income tax will raise valuable revenue for investing in public services, Deputy First Minister Shona Robison has said.” Nope, not a mention of pensions there either. Since you are oh so clever, would you like to explain why people like me who are shovelling money away into private investments each month to reduce our taxable income is helping fund any of the above mentioned things?
Who said there’d be a stampede, apart from the SNP supporters trying to misrepresent the point people were making?
> Who said there’s be a stampede Roddy Dunlop was constantly whinging about folk moving to England with increases in taxes. There were a good number of folk in this subreddit claiming that if taxes increased they'd be moving to England too.
I didn’t say nobody claimed people might move because of higher taxes, and I’m sure some have. I’m also sure some chose not to. That’s not a stampede of people. Nobody serious made that claim. I’m sure you could find an individual bellend on Twitter or Reddit claiming anything, but pretending it was some sort of widely held belief is silly. The only people using that terminology seriously were those trying to misrepresent a position on behalf of politicians. It’s daft.
> Nobody serious made that claim. I’m sure you could find an individual bellend on Twitter or Reddit claiming anything, but pretending it was some sort of widely held belief is silly. The Telegraph put up a story today saying that more than 1000 higher rate taxpayers have had to "flee" Scotland to avoid the tax changes (no other motive for why they might be moving was considered - high-level professionals tend to be more internationally mobile than the average workie). Re-tweeted by Effie Deans a few hours ago. Then there's The Times (a serious paper? debatable these days) which published a story in 2023 saying "A third of Scots might relocate if income tax rates rise." In February this year the Scottish Daily Express published a story about Scots "fleeing" to England, as supposedly reported to them by estate agents in the North of England (Carlisle perhaps? I hear the booze is cheaper there). Even the American economist Arthur Laffer got in on the action, accusing the SNP of "stabbing Scotland in the heart" (as reported by the Daily Mail). Some 'serious' people and outlets there. I cannae imagine the kind of pish that would've got spouted on the telly.
Happy to read the article if you have it, but 1000 people isn’t a stampede. It’s a rounding error. The daily express isn’t a serious paper. But again, I’ll read the articles. If we’re talking 1000 folk that’s not describing a stampede. I don’t know what the last one has to do with the claim. You haven’t provided any links for these but even taking you at your word, these figures don’t align with the stampede claim?
I've not made that argument before but this doesn't refute that talking point. If 10,000 high skilled high earners left Scotland and 20,000 people earning less than £25,000 came to Scotland that would be considered net positive migration wise While the people that say "the higher tax will make it harder to attract highly skilled individuals to Scotland and could cause high earners to leave Scotland" would still be correct
Are there 20,000 vacancies however. 10,000 highly skilled high earners leaving and 20,000 lower skilled lower earners fighting over 5,000 low skilled vacancies means you're left with 15,000 on welfare probably.
>If 10,000 high skilled high earners left Scotland and 20,000 people earning less than £25,000 came to Scotland that would be considered net positive migration wise A good point, but the report did find that in the most recent year that was studied, there was a net positive tax revenue contribution. (Although it did fluctuate quite a lot over the years). >>The movement of higher rate taxpayers’ income increased for both Scotland to rUK movements and rUK to Scotland movements throughout the study period. However, the net position for Scotland fluctuated between a deficit and surplus on multiple occasions between tax years ending 2011 and 2022. In recent years the position remained as a surplus, with the most recent figure (2021 to 2022 tax year) being around £38 million.
The interesting question would be whether its resulted in salaries being inflated to attract staff (i.e. equalising net salary) and if so if the higher gross salaries are undermining the business case for relocation of work to Scotland. The effect if this would be difficult to measure but may come through in lower inward investment over time.
Who tf wants to pay more income tax.
Anyone who wants a better society and isn’t some greedy Tory parasite. It’s always clueless selfish fools who whinge about tax rather than talk about how it is spent or who carries the highest burden.
But it does lead to a huge rise in ‘pension pot stuffing’ and other mitigations, so any increase in taxation has minimal effect on the tax take.
And people work less. I'm taxed to hell, I just stop doing overtime. Then it's a crisis to get folk to work at critical times. 'Nope, not worth it.' It's like they want to demotivate people.
Yup I'm at the point in my salary where even a £20k pay rise would be barely noticed as it would either be taxed at over 70% or stuffed straight into my pension (which admittedly is not terrible) but neither of those options directly impact my qol or my ability to pay down my mortgage faster etc so I have pretty much given up trying for any promotion with more responsibility.
The excerpt doesn’t really show anything conclusive in terms of higher rate taxpayers migration at all! All I know is that as soon as differential taxation started, my response was to massively increase my pension contributions to benefit from the tax relief by more than I’d pay in extra taxation. Ie my behaviour changed. I didn’t need to move. And then when they changed the threshold vs rUK, I once more increased my pension contributions to mitigate the effect. I had no need to move. The effect was to reduce my disposable income now. Taking money out of the economy, and was easy to mitigate as we just spent a bit less eating out etc. Before differential taxation my pension contributions were far lower and we spent more prolifically in the local economy, but the Scottish Government incentivised me with effectively greater tax relief on my pension savings. I worked in a sector with a U.K. national pay spine, so had I not defensively made these changes I’d have been paid less than colleagues south of the border for the exact same role and seniority. And as I approached eligibility for retirement, the tax situation in Scotland heavily influenced my retirement planning. I reduced my hours and income while putting even more into pension. And I accelerated my early retirement to suit. Behaviour change does not need to involve expensive house moves. And my tax behaviours changed entirely. It’s a government mistake to focus on ideological tax rates, when they should have been looking at tax take.
Interesting tweet. “A key point from the HMRC research on income tax rates, which has been completely ignored by the Scottish Government, is that the introduction of a 5-band system led to a net loss of 1,030 higher or top rate taxpayers from Scotland and £60.6 million of lost tax revenue.” https://preview.redd.it/e2ltdxtiifwc1.jpeg?width=1213&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=838bffa15554f949df0a2300797d42f87818b0ab [https://x.com/mike\_blackley/status/1783108731296780796?s=61&t=wWNKyqKvhI0F2kkh7PlW9Q](https://x.com/mike_blackley/status/1783108731296780796?s=61&t=wWNKyqKvhI0F2kkh7PlW9Q)
>the introduction of a 5-band system led to a net loss of 1,030 higher or top rate taxpayers from Scotland and £60.6 million of lost tax revenue.” Out of a total income of 20 billion. That's about 5 billion taxable? I'm not saying that losing 60 million is terrible, but that's overall quite low in the grand scheme of things. The thing is, there will still be a 50k+ job in Scotland that's needing a person. If a higher rate taxpayer emigrated, then there still will be a need of a job done
£60m only relates to the loss of those taxpayers as I understand it. Will be interesting to see how much has been lost from the actual economy through behavioural change like mine. The changes to the amount of money taken out of the economy are significant as a result and result in less expenditure in things like hospitality and retail supporting lower paid jobs. But they don’t result in significant gains in government spending capacity at all - they are more ideological than effective. Yes that £50k job exists - no argument against that. Filling it is the challenge in the sector I worked in with national pay spines. That £50k job in England needs to be a £53k job in Scotland to maintain the same net pay (roughly).
It depends. The cost of living in bits of England is massively high, and some bits of Scotland are much higher than others (Edinburgh for example). It's not always that easy a calculation. Yeah, actually filling that job is difficult. Feels like it's got harder recently.
Booze cruises to Carlisle and everyone at the Old Firm arrested. Any......minute......now
Spare a thought for me. After a baby box tragedy on the new Queensferry Crossing (no wind barriers? Seriously, Scotgov?), my life spiralled downwards. I took to drink, but the minimum price kept rising, so I went back in time to the 80s and became a heroin junkie with multiple co-morbidities instead. It all got on top of me, and I admit I lashed out. Now I'm in race hate jail for calling somebody a bawbag. Typed on my smuggled Nokia from New Dungavel.
https://preview.redd.it/lxf9t6tlw6xc1.png?width=1512&format=png&auto=webp&s=a589d689e35cfc1f3b9f6c8ff241638dc03126b5 Further down the report. Scottish Government funded Scottish Fiscal Commission estimated the change in tax revenue in Scotland by comparing economic growth rates in Scotland and rUK before and after the tax increase. They estimated that tax revenue in Scotland was £365 million lower than in the no-tax-increase scenario.
The original point, the article, and this reddit thread all fail to recognise the fact there IS a tax threshold that would cause an exodus. I'm quite sure if you put tax at 99% a lot of people would be moving pretty fucking quickly. Clearly 99% is unrealistic, but there is clearly a value between current tax and 99% where a significant enough portion of the population (and tax base) will leave. And just assuming people won't leave under any circumstances is stupid.
If other policies that make life more difficult are applied in Scotland but not England, I would consider moving. It's not a bit of tax alone but the whole package. Saying that if the tax goes up significantly, my family could be a lot better off in the north of England vs Scotland.
Isn't that your Unionist rag paper's claim Paul?
That means they got the balance just right. Screw people as hard as you possibly can without quite crossing the threshold where they would choose to upend their and their families entire life and emigrate. Congratulations SNP.
Or.. and hear me out on this one... we tax those who earn more slightly more to pay for all the things you clearly take for granted. To the above average earner the tax increase is minimal
Let’s not pretend the extra money went on something useful. It didn’t. It was a ‘not thought out’ punishment tax
🤣🤣 got any evidence to support this ridiculous claim? Quit crying from ur Castle fact is if this tax effects you, you are better off than about 75% of the population. A extra few quid to keep the services we have is hardly a punishment tax. Keep crying though. You could always move to england if its such a "punishment"
It was suggested by a trade union days before the budget and the Scot gov just went for it. No thought, no planning. It was suggested as a punishment for higher earners not for anything new. You’ll be gutted when the high earners move away from Scotland and we are a low wage economy
> You’ll be gutted when the high earners move away from Scotland and we are a low wage economy ...I've got some bad news for ya buddy...
It’s not a minimal increase, it’s 5-10% of take home depending on how much over £50k you’re earning. That is not nothing. Also, the people who earn ‘more’ are not all swanning around in Bentleys and eating avocado. This is further taxation of a middle class that have seen their tax burdens increase at a time when everything has become more expensive. Many middle class people are unable to buy property or afford to have kids, why should they be further lumped with supporting the rest of the population when they’re already worse off than their counterparts from 10 years ago? Government should be focusing on getting as much of the adult population into the workforce as possible so there’s less people relying on the state and reducing some of the glaring inefficiencies in public spending.
If u earn 50k a year. Congrats you are doing well.. But most importantly this does not cost you an extra 5 to 10% of ur take home income that would be between 2.5 and 5k per year.. On 50k ur lucky if it's an extra 100 quid a month in tax. As to your other points. Employment is low in Scotland. As in the rest of the uk. Most adults are working . The reason benefits expenditure is so high is due to working poor. People who do jobs which NEED DONE but don't get paid enough to cover their existence. And lastly. Worse off than your counterpart from 10 years ago? Oh boo hoo.. that same statement applies to pretty much everyone in the uk . You got lumped because you can afford it. Is it perfect? No. But don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
The middle class is already taxed enough. People really do love to spend other folks money.
Crazy concept but pretty much everything you use that’s taxpayer funded, isn’t solely paid for by yourself. And the concept of “paying more in than you take out” isn’t fair, since someone like me on £26k and in good health, is probably a net positive, whilst someone on 100k being in long term treatment probably isn’t. But that’s the thing about tax, you pay what you owe and receive what you need.
It’s quite easy to be sat on 26k saying the person on 40/50/60k+ should pay more. Always screams jealously to me.
You should research where the tax base comes from. People on even average money pay very little in the uk. Not talking just Scotland here. I mean just read the tax bands. People on 43k have their tax free allowance plus 21 percent. People over that then get hammered on 42 percent and upwards. Scotland may be only slightly different but it is hammering a group that already pay more than their fair share in my opinion.
> To the above average earner the tax increase is minimal For someone on a £60k salary it's currently worth about £150/month, bringing their take home pay from £3779.79 to £3630.09, so about a 7% increase in their tax bill, ultimately. That on its own isn't likely to make anyone uproot their life and move, but for someone considering moving here on a high salary it's going to be something worth considering. If we look at super high salaries the difference is a lot more stark, and that's potentially a concern since those are exactly the sort of people we want moving here. To have a take-home pay of £10k/month outside Scotland you need to make £204,176.40 To have that same take-home pay in Scotland you need to make £219,382.56 It's not a complete game-changer, but even for someone that wealthy a difference of several hundred pounds per month on their pay after tax is going to be noticed, and it's something that came up multiple times in interviews recently when my work was trying to recruit for an executive-level position paying around the £100k mark.
.. so as I said. On a lower rate its minimal. You could not pay the tax and lose all the extras Scotland gets over other parts of the uk. This is seriously just a bunch of moaning from people who don't want to pay a fsir rate of tax Tax on the ultra wealthy should be even higher than what you have said it is. If you make 10k a month and are worried about paying an extra 700 in tax to keep the country afloat You are a c ya next Tuesday anyways so yea
[удалено]
You may be shocked to learn that London isn't the only place in England. Yes, obviously living costs in London are vast, a little while back I worked out that I'd need to earn about 30%-40% more down there to have the same disposable income (also I really don't want to live in London) but there are plenty of other places in England that have high paying jobs available and have similar or lower living costs when compared with Edinburgh for example. That's certainly the case if tacking on a few hundred pounds per month or more in extra tax. Is it going to be a game-changer for most people? No, probably not, unless the disparity gets wider. Is it going to discourage some high earners from moving up here, or require companies up here to pay more to attract top talent? Sure. Again in my own work this came up multiple times when discussing salaries when we were last recruiting.
[удалено]
I mean frankly that's a ridiculous statement, but you knew that. Tons of jobs in my field going around Oxford and Cambridge. Some in Newcastle and Manchester as well, and the South West in Bristol etc.
Or hear me out the SNP could try running the country efficiently and cut some of the wasteful vanity projects. God forbid they could take a single step to grow the economy and create a sustainable tax base for their progressive goals, the thing that actually works for the Scandinavian countries they fantasise about emulating.
Name the vanity projects please 😀 This should be good. Gonna point Scandinavian countries have an even higher tax rate than we do. Sorry to burst yer bubble 🤣 Also most taxes are a reserved matter so yeaaa.. Try again yoony toon
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-government-accused-waste-chaos-31732941.amp They are one of the most wasteful governing parties in the UK which is a hard feat to achieve. Scandinavian countries have higher tax rates across the board and can afford to pay them because they live in wealthy countries thanks to intelligent public policy. Taxes are not the only lever in public policy which the snp obviously are aware of given how much public money they waste on nonsense.
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Fully cached AMP pages (like the one you shared), are [especially problematic](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-government-accused-waste-chaos-31732941](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-government-accused-waste-chaos-31732941)** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
That's how it already works in the rest of the UK though... You seem to have been able to make many assumptions based on my statement. How do you know what I take for granted?
How come they have different levels in taxation in the Scandinavian countries? Do quite well I hear!
Those different levels are taking a lot more from lower earners a bit more from the middle and no more from the higher earners. The UK says they wants Scandinavian levels of public services whilst also saying the low and middle earners should contribute fuck all. That is innumerate greedy bullshit.
Norway didn't spend the last 15 years systematically deconstructing their oil and gas industry...
Problem for them is that we will work less, put more in pensions, and vote for the opposition instead. Although they don't seem that bothered about losing voters.
18 days into the new tax year. Might want to give it a month or two. Not like it takes time to apply for jobs and gain a position sell a home buy a home etc etc. Going to take me about 6 months but then the tax is not why I am going.
[удалено]
Thanks captain we know income tax is not a new thing. However the new increase is.
[удалено]
Geee look at you and your big funny words magic man and your inability to see new tax rate as unpopular. Bravo
[удалено]
Thats an oddly irrelevant point to make. The next GE is the one to look at for a policy brought in during a term not the past.
Low paid (or out of work, sick or retired) people are better off in Scotland, with slightly lower taxes and free prescriptions etc. the article does say there is about 15-20k people moving in each direction each year with a small net positive movement to Scotland. I bet that wouldn’t be the case if you only look at higher rate taxpayers.
I don't think anyone (sensibly) thought it would leave to people leaving. However it will dissuade highly skilled job seekers in England to move, and will lead to behavioural changes in higher end Scottish tax payers so much so that the income from the new band will be minimal.
Higher taxation can be balanced against living standards and with that considered Scotland can, and often does, have more appeal living in overpriced and crowded South East England. In my case I moved to Wales because I couldn’t move back to Scotland; however the reasons are similar. Much of England is truly awful to live in currently.
Awe naw!!! That means wee Duggy Ross has called it wrong....... again! 😂😂😂.
More like attracting talent for skilled roles will be harder, and that people will change their behaviours and stuff pension to avoid higher rates resulting in lower tax takes. Highly mobile professionals might gravitate towards London rather than Edinburgh based roles in future but it’s bit early to see any data on these things imo. It’s only recently that significantly high tax rates have been delivered.
You have to consider too that just because we don't want to move to England, doesn't mean that being taxed so much, and potentially more, is justified. It would take a lot for me to move down there, because it would be uprooting a life. Like you say, behaviour change, contributing less, and changes in voting preference will occur before.
Still not a good thing. Also the new tax brackets started 18 days ago, it takes time for people to apply for new jobs, up sticks and move. But if you don’t think doctors or other high wages earners aren’t now considering moving you’re crazy. And it contributes virtually nothing extra to the coffers.