Following the SNP budget, Scotland has become the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom.
It has been confirmed by the SNP Finance Secretary, Derek Mackay, that everyone earning over £26,000 p.a. will now be paying more tax, while the SNP lauded their decision as it will make the lesser paid better off by just 38 pence per week.
This increase in taxation goes against the SNP 2016 manifesto, which stated that the basic rate of income tax would be protected.
Councillor Damian Timson said:
“In the November Budget the UK heard from the Conservative Government how families and businesses are being backed with wage increases and taxes lowered. Then yesterday the SNP made Scotland the highest taxed area of the United Kingdom; this is despite the £1,700 per person we are better off in Scotland through the Barnett formula.
“The SNP then have the audacity to celebrate that the lower paid will be better off – a whole 38 pence per week.
“This increase in taxation will hit around 1 million people in Scotland, including nurses, teachers, police and the Armed Forces.
“At a time when we are facing a GP crisis in Scotland, GPs will now, thanks to the SNP, be nearly £1,000 worse off per annum than GPs in the rest of the UK. How is this going to attract GPs to come and work in Scotland?
“At the same time as this the SNP confirmed that Councils in Scotland will face devastating cuts whilst being forced to raise Council Tax. West Lothian Council are having to make life-changing cuts to services because of the SNP Government. These cuts will affect everyone and would be avoidable if the SNP passed on the funding that is received from the UK Government.
“The block grant from the UK Government has gone up in real terms; yet the SNP make savage cuts to Council funding across Scotland.
“Scotland should be attracting people and businesses to live and work here; yet thanks to the SNP, the opposite is true.”