Taxation union

One of the red-line issues during the referendum was the impossibility of having a currency union outwith full political union.

How strange, then, that Lord Smith, whom everyone holds in such high regard, has delivered this most undesirable outcome, and apparently without anyone noticing.

The power to vary tax bands has been included in the proposed settlement. If this is granted, it will most certainly be used by the SNP government as they steer ever further to the left. Scotland has a relatively small number of millionaires and billionaires, and these people are highly mobile.

As The Scotsman said in a recent editorial, tax take invariably goes down when tax rates go up.

If this error of judgement is added to the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax which, based on past records, seems to indicate that 70 per cent of the tax collected will depend upon just 7 per cent of house sales, (from the same section of society?), it is possible to imagine a situation in which these two income streams will diminish greatly.

This would seem to lead inevitably to increased taxation for less affluent Scots, or assistance from Westminster and/or the Bank of England to rectify a situation not of their making.

Graham M McLeod

Muirs

Kinross