The council tax is a terrible way to raise money for local services and should have been scrapped years ago. Widows in big houses pay the same as millionaires and there is no link to ability to pay.
It is also based on property valuations from 1991, a year when Andy Roxburgh was Scotland manager and Bryan Adams was top of the charts. The soaring value in property prices is not recognised in any way and the wealthy get off without paying their fair share.
Alternatives are also in plentiful supply. MSPs could link a new tax to a percentage of a property’s current value or to household income. Reforming the status quo could involve a revaluation or an expansion of council tax rebates for low income Scots.
The reality is the Scottish Government press release on council tax was one of their most cynical statements in years.
SNP politicians swept to power nearly twenty years ago after promising to scrap the “unfair” council tax. Their alternative, a local income tax, never got off the ground and the manifesto commitment was ditched.
A cross-party commission was then set up in 2015 and demanded the “end” of the council tax. The report is languishing in a Government basement caked in dust.
A “joint working group” on council tax reform was launched in 2022 and produced almost nothing. According to the Scottish Government website, this talking shop last met twelve months ago.
But John Swinney’s government is now trumpeting a “joint programme of engagement” and “potential reform” of the council tax.
Over the last two decades, SNP administrations have either tweaked the tax – jacking up rates for holiday homes and allowing tourist levies – or frozen the rates.
Devolution was supposed to herald bold solutions to complex problems, but MSPs have chosen to stick with a tax introduced by Tory Michael Heseltine.
All the political incentives point to politicians leaving the status quo in place, or quietly introducing further tiny changes. A new system would create winners and losers, with the former offering little gratitude and the losers squealing all the way to the ballot box.
Courage is required on the council tax and politicians of all stripes have failed on this front.
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