Taxing issues

Published on 04/09/2012 00:00

You would expect that a piece by the policy director of an 
organisation calling itself ThinkScotland (Brian Monteith, Perspective, 3 September) would display some evidence of thought. Not a bit of it.

Instead, we get a tabloid-style rant about “the dictatorship of the mob majority”, tittle-tattle about “the talk in Paris” and non-sequiturs: just because “the typical émigré is under 40 and working in a good job”, it does not follow that “the French contribution to [UK] economic growth is therefore considerable”.

However, to be fair, Mr Monteith does offer one interesting fact: only Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden have higher top rates of income tax than we do.

Does Mr Monteith not know that all those countries are substantially richer per head than the UK, as well as being less ­unequal?

This country has become a lot more unequal in recent years. Mr Monteith seems to be pleased about this, and indeed his belief that “tax competition is a good thing” suggests he hopes that it becomes more unequal still. While this may be good news for a small minority, it’s hard to see why the rest should welcome it.

Andrew Anderson

Granton Road

Edinburgh