The Scottish Government has a chance to turn the clock back on 14 years of austerity and rebuild community wealth. But to do so it must invest in local services, end peak fares, deliver free school meals, scrap the small business bonus scheme, and raise revenue from property and wealth taxes.
November 2024
Open letter from Scotland’s largest trade unions, academics, charities and campaign organisations calling on Scotland’s main political party leaders to ‘urgently’ revaluate property across the country as a critical step towards reforming Scotland’s broken system of local property taxation.
April 2024
A report by Howard Reed, Landman Economics, commissioned by the STUC exploring the options for increasing taxes in Scotland to fund investment in public services and public sector pay. The research finds that short-run and longer-run tax changes could raise an extra £3.3 billion per year, which could be used to fund a real-terms increase in public sector pay as well as a substantial additional investment in Scotland’s public services. The increase in public sector pay reduces gender inequalities in earnings, and the package of tax increases is distributionally progressive whether measured by household wealth or household income.
December 2022
On the 24th of January 2024, the Scottish Government led debate on their motion about investing in the green economy, including the importance of public investment.
April 2024
STUC Parliamentary Briefing ahead of Scottish Green Party debate on Budget Priorities
October 2024
Written by IPPR, this thought paper outlines the existing local government funding context, including recent cuts to local government funding in Scotland, and current funding arrangements. The paper then looks at a number of international examples of sub-state taxes, before considering which of these international examples could be applicable in Scotland. The paper considers five illustrative examples of potential new forms of local tax and local funding arrangements in Scotland.
September 2019
