Ahead of her opening the National Economic Forum in Edinburgh, the First Minister was urged to ‘listen to the growing number of voices telling them to reverse these tax hikes’.
It comes after the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) warned that the changes to council tax could lead to householders paying an extra £170 million in council tax next year.
This would then in turn damage consumer spending and threaten jobs up and down the country.
Scottish Conservative shadow secretary for the economy, Dean Lockhart MSP said:
“The SNP have now had repeated warnings about the negative impact their tax rises will have on our economy.
“We’ve consistently seen Scotland lag behind the rest of the UK in terms of economic growth and job creation, making it clear that there are fundamental problems with the SNP’s current approach.
“Their council tax proposals threaten to make the situation even worse, and it and it’s time they listened to the growing number of voices telling them to reverse these tax hikes.
"Instead of continually talking down Scotland’s economic prospects and hyping up the possible impact of Brexit, to disguise the fact that the SNP have now had nine years to get to grips with the economy, the First Minister should get on with the day job and concentrate on growing the economy.
“It’s not acceptable that Scots will have to pay higher taxes than those in the rest of the UK, and until the SNP realise this our economy will continue to suffer.”