Scrap the Council Tax - the case for the Scottish Service Tax
Next time you queue up to pay your council tax bill, or gasp in
horror at your bank statement, spare a thought for others! For such
as Brian Souter, one of Scotland's richest men, personal wealth
£560 million; declared income last year of £640,000; who
lives in a 12-bedroom Perthshire castle valued at £1million.
Poor Brian has to scrape by after paying his council tax bill of
£1,516 - not per week, nor per month, but for the entire
year!
Or recall Balmoral Castle, a 100-apartment palace, set in 50,000
acres of land, whose (Royal) household income is about £10
million a year. They face an annual council tax bill of a mere
£1,555. It makes your blood boil that low-paid and
middle-income workers scrimp and save to meet impossible council tax
bills - for council services that face annual cuts. The council
tax, in common with the entire taxation system under this and
previous governments, makes the rich even richer, the poor even
poorer.
It is an indisputable fact that the richest 20% of the population pay
a lesser proportion of their income on council tax than the poorest
20%. It is obscenely regressive. Other parties moan about the Council
Tax; the Scottish Socialist Party demands its abolition. And we have
thoroughly researched and costed our alternative, called the Scottish
Service Tax.
Scrap the Unfair Council Tax - article from the
Scottish Socialist Voice outlining our proposals.
Scottish Socialists aim for Wealth
Redistribution - Press Release outlining proposals for the
Scottish Service Tax.
Details of the Scottish
Service Tax - a detailed view by Professor Mike Danson and Geoff
Whittam of the department of Economics & Enterprise, University
of Paisley
What it means to you -
see what you would pay under our proposals.
Join our fight to make the rich pay their fair share as part of the
bigger crusade to combat poverty and inequality.