If you want to soak the rich you first need rich people to soak.

The Scottish economy is in a degrowth spiral

That those with the broadest shoulders should carry the heaviest burden is the guiding principal of taxation in all democratic societies. Yet this assumes that the broad shoulders actually exist.  In Scotland, increasingly, they don't. The Scottish Government’s higher rate tax increase last week will yield a grand total of £95m - enough to run the Scottish NHS for all of 48 hours.  The inconvenient truth is that the sclerotic Scottish economy is not generating enough middle class jobs. Nicola Sturgeon is increasingly taxing a chimera. 

Here is the sobering fiscal reality.  43% of Scots pay no tax at all and rely increasingly on benefits.  Of the 2.5 million that do pay tax  the vast majority are on the starter and basic rate. According to the independent Fraser of Allander Institute, only 15,000 Scots have been paying the top “additional” rate, for those earning above £125,000. 362,000 have been paying the higher rate.  Yet these two groups, only 16 per cent of Scottish taxpayers, have been contributing 60 per cent of tax receipts. Yes, 60 per cent of all tax paid. That figure shatters the widespread delusion of the Scottish political classes that the rich can always pay more.  

In SNP Scotland, not only are there not enough rich people, there are precious few on middle class incomes able to contribute to Nordic level tax rates. Dragging more middle earners into higher tax brackets through successive budgets has generated proportionately less revenue each year.  Many of the public sector workers out on the picket lines last week will shortly find that THEY are now the “rich”. The higher rate starts at £43,000 a figure earned by train drivers, many teachers and police constables.  

Scotland is in an economic degrowth spiral with low incomes, dwindling tax revenues and threadbare public services. This may gladden the hearts of Nicola Sturgeon's Green Party coalition partners who want to halt economic growth altogether, but it is a reckless way to manage a modern economy.  As job opportunities evaporate and taxes rise, yet more Scots will take their professional qualifications and businesses south or abroad. 

Public services, like education and local government, are being cut to the bone even as taxes rise inexorably. The Scottish Government blames Westminster “austerity”, even though the Barnett Formula subsidy is larger than ever, Covid aside. The truth is Scotland is in no fit state to go for independence.

Which may explain why Nicola Sturgeon has reallocated the £20m that was previously devoted to making the case for it.

(This is an edited extract from an article in The Spectator magazine. The full piece is here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-snps-tax-hikes-wont-work/ )