Dr Greg Bremner, economist at the University of Abertay
There is very little in this report with which I would disagree. The suggested changes in tax-raising options, Workplace Parking Levy in Nottingham or tourist taxes, for example, tend to be successful in achieving their aim. Altering council taxes and income taxes also raise revenue and the measures mentioned are certainly reasonable and plausible.
Despite claims to the contrary, austerity is not over, especially insofar as it erodes the public sector. The most recent Scottish Fiscal Commission analysis reports that the rate of Scottish economic growth has been slower over the last decade than historic average rates and that this trend of slower growth is likely to persist until 2022/23.
Along with weak growth in real wages, household disposable income and productivity, it is difficult to see how the necessary major injections to council coffers could be made. It is relatively difficult to increase taxes, or introduce new taxes, when the economy is doing well; far more difficult in straitened times.
The report authors, Danson and Whittam, hit upon land value tax (LVT). Dating from the 1870s, they are correct to say that LVT is "extremely radical". The fact that it has not been widely adopted should not be allowed to obscure the fact that, where it is the norm, it more than achieves the financial outcomes for which it was designed.
LVT implementation in Scotland would be extremely radical but the net effect of a carefully implemented LVT that generates funds of the magnitude required by local councils to restore public services to their pre-austerity levels would be worthwhile.
The question as to whether Danson and Whittam’s ideas are sufficient to provide much needed funds for local councils remains unanswered, but they do unearth a radical solution. Tax systems of any kind create winners and losers; LVT would do so too. But, as Danson and Whittam themselves conclude, land value tax is a goal which is worth pursuing.
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