A new tax strategy for Scotland: roundtable engagement

The Scottish government is planning to publish a tax strategy alongside the draft Budget for 2025/26, which is expected to be on 4 December 2024. The Scottish government sought feedback as to what the tax strategy should contain from a wide range of stakeholders, including the CIOT, LITRG and ATT earlier in 2024. The initial intention had been to publish a draft for written consultation in the early summer. However, due to various political events, this proved impossible. The Scottish government is therefore using a number of roundtables to obtain further feedback from stakeholders prior to publication of the final tax strategy.

In late August and early September, the CIOT attended two roundtables. CIOT, LITRG and ATT are all attending either one or two roundtables in late September and early October.

The first roundtable was organised and chaired by the David Hume Institute (DHI) on behalf of the Scottish government. The DHI is an independent research institute based in Scotland, and it hosted a cross-sector roundtable to enable the sharing of views on the role of tax in the economy in Scotland, as well as interventions to support growing the tax base.

The second roundtable was organised by the Scottish government and chaired by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, Shona Robison MSP.

The final two roundtables have been organised by the Scottish government, and will be chaired by Lorraine King, Deputy Director, Tax Strategy, Engagement and Performance from the Directorate for Tax Revenues. One of the roundtables will focus on future priorities for the Scottish tax system, including the proposed tax literacy framework, and how to expand the Scottish tax base. The other roundtable will focus on the current Scottish tax system, public understanding of tax, and how the Scottish government can better provide stability and certainty to taxpayers.

Our organisations’ contributions so far have focused on the importance of improving tax education and tax literacy, given that this can support tax compliance, growth of the tax base and encourage positive attitudes towards the tax authority and tax system:

• Better understanding of tax can help people make informed decisions, that are better not only for their own finances, but also for the economy.
• Telling people about their entitlements and making it easy to obtain them can generate trust.
• Making tax processes easier to understand can help people comply.

We have also made contributions on the importance of a better and more transparent legislative process for making policy changes, and the need to carry out a revaluation of domestic properties for council tax.

All three bodies continue to engage with the Scottish government in relation to devolved tax powers.

Joanne Walker [email protected]