Interesting Links for 24-12-2018

[andrewducker]

Obviously THE LAST JEDI’s Throne Room Fight Scene Is About Online Dating

(tags: relationships StarWars funny )

Gatwick investigation police say always a possibility that there may not have been any genuine drone activity in the first place

(tags: drone police wtf )

JK Rowling mocks 'Saint Jeremy' Corbyn's Brexit stance

(tags: UK europe jkrowling labour )

Feeling powerful makes you less empathic

(tags: psychology empathy power )

The human life cycle is significantly more complex than I thought!

(tags: comic funny life viaMyBrotherHugh )

What was actually said in the Mermaids lecture?

(tags: transgender lgbt )

Many trans people play into stereotypes because otherwise doctors won't treat them

(tags: transgender lgbt )

Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

(tags: usa open data )

World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin

(tags: eggs technology hormones food )

Dissecting the myth of the Labour leave vote

(tags: Labour europe uk viaMorag )

Comments

[calimac]

Sermon on St Jeremy: So has personal taxation in Scotland been completely devolved? The residents thereof contribute nothing to the general UK funds? What about corporate taxation?

[andrewducker]

Just income tax.

The Wikipedia article is pretty good.

"Following the passage of the Scotland Act 2012, the Scottish Parliament was given greater powers over income tax. In the 2016/17 tax year it had to set a Scottish Rate of Income Tax (SRIT). The idea of the power was that the UK tax rate would be reduced by 10%, with the block grant being reduced by an equivalent amount. In 2016/17 the Scottish budget set the SRIT at 10%, which left tax rates at the same level as in the rest of the UK.

The Scotland Act 2016 gave the Scottish Parliament full control over income tax rates and bands, except the personal allowance. In 2017/18, the only notable difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK was that the higher rate limit was frozen in Scotland. In the draft budget for 2018/19, new rates and bands have been proposed."

[alithea]

No, taxation is only devolved to the extent that the Scottish Government can set income tax rates and bands (the threshold for each rate) and spend any increase in revenue from that themselves. I don't think corporate tax is devolved at all.

[calimac]

This actually illustrates why Wikipedia is not much help. Following reading this, I checked the article on "Taxation in Scotland" (that which it had not previously occurred to me there was an article on) and all 3 articles on Scotland Acts that it links to, and perused their typically Wikipedia-ish clotted prose, and none of them appear to be the one you're quoting from.

I guess the phrase "gave the Scottish Parliament full control over income tax rates and bands" answers my immediate question, but I'm still confused. My understanding is that the annual UK budget sets its tax rates, which variously may go up or down each year. But what's not clear is what determines the Scottish contribution to that. So in 2012-16 the UK rates were reduced in Scotland, allowing Holyrood to add however much it wanted for Scottish use, but the UK budget rates still thus had an influence on what the Scottish rates were. But what happens now? Is the Scottish contribution to the UK budget determined purely by Holyrood? If so, how does the UK Treasury plan around it? But if it's at all calculated in terms of the UK budget, as it was in 2012-16, then Rowling is wrong and the Westminster government of the day does have an effect on her tax rates.

[andrewducker]

Off dog walking with the family in a moment, but this is the article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_Scotland?wprov=sfla1

In any case, it's certainly only income tax that's affected, as far as I know.

[alithea]

The Treasury has to plan based on estimates of tax revenue anyway though.

ETA I think they are only allowed to vary rates up to 3% away from the main UK rate but that might have been an interim measure...

[calimac]

Oh, income tax. But I wasn't thinking just of income tax, but of personal taxation in general. People pay property tax, VAT, etc. If those are set in Scotland by Westminster, then again the Westminster government affects Rowling's tax rates.

That doesn't mean I think that Rowling is only fretting about her taxes. She seems too intelligent for that. And, as she points out, there are numerous tax-avoidance schemes she hasn't taken. But certainly there are wealthy people in her position who seem unable to develop any political priorities other than lower taxes.

[skington]

Eh? J K Rowling isn't fretting about her taxes; on the contrary, her response to Corbynistas saying she's only bashing Labour because she's rich and doesn't want to pay more in tax, is that she already pays more tax because she lives in Scotland.

[cmcmck]

Possibly, but it isn't stopping them investigating all 200+ 'sightings'............

[calimac]

That's what I said: she's not fretting about her taxes. I'm establishing that, even though I question her point about who's responsible for setting her tax rate, I am not making the mistake of the people she's criticizing, who say that she is fretting about her taxes.

But I didn't see where she said that she pays more tax because she's in Scotland than in England. (Even if that's true: the brunt of the Wikipedia article is that the rates are pretty much the same.) She says that she pays more tax because she's in Scotland than a tax exile overseas. She says that Holyrood, not Westminster, sets her tax rates, so her preferences on a Westminster government are not affected by that concern.

[skington]

Sorry, you're right; it's consistent with her politics that she'd be happy to pay more tax than she does, and from next year onwards rich people like her will pay slightly more income tax as a result of the SNP's budget, but she didn't actually say that.