Hundreds of Scottish Government employees are registered as taxpayers in England, meaning they don’t face the higher income tax bills paid by the public they work for.

The Scottish Tories said it was “embarrassing and telling” that almost one in every 50 members of staff in the administration was subject to the arrangement.

In response to a freedom of information request, the Scottish Government said that 280 of its 16,435 civil servants lived in England and that all 280 paid English tax rates.

Tax status is based on a person’s residency not where their employer is based, meaning Scottish Government staff living in England automatically pay English tax rates.

However the Tories said it was a “humiliating rebuke” to ministers and a "portent" that high tax could lead to others saving money by living just over the border. 

Scottish workers earning more than £28,850 pay more income tax than counterparts in the rest of the UK because of frozen thresholds and higher rates, with someone earning £50,000 in Scotland paying £1500 more than their equivalent in England.

SNP finance secretary Shona Robison also introduced a new “advanced” income tax rate in her draft Scottish budget last month aimed at high earners.

The 45% rate will apply to earnings between £75,000 and £125,140 from April, compared to the same earnings being taxed at 40% in England.

The Scottish Govenrment says the more “progressive” system is fairer in its own right, and pays for services only available in Scotland, such as free university tuition fees.

Tory MSP Liz Smith said the widening tax gap was a disincentive to high earners and potentially undermined business investment and economic growth.

She said: “It is embarrassing and telling that so many Scottish Government staff should be paying the rate that applies south of the border to avoid the punitive tax imposed by the SNP.

“While it is entirely understandable that those with valid grounds for doing so - for example, if their family home is in England - should choose to avoid the extra tax imposed by the SNP, it is also a humiliating rebuke to their employer.

“After the latest tax hikes in Shona Robison’s budget, it would be no surprise if more people in the south of Scotland moved house to Berwick or Carlisle to avoid being clobbered further.

“These figures are a portent of the growing behavioural change we can expect in the wider workforce because the SNP Government continue to make it more expensive to live here.

“Those huge extra costs for middle earners actually bring in a tiny proportion of the SNP’s funding shortfall, but they risk driving away the doctors, dentists, business people, engineers and others that are crucial to Scotland’s economic health.”

A spokesperson for Ms Robison said: “We will take precisely zero lessons from the Tories on tax policy – their credibility rating was downgraded to junk status the moment they demanded we copy Liz Truss’s disastrous tax policies, which wiped billions from the economy, endangered pension funds and pushed up mortgage interest rates.

“Official statistics show that thousands more people have moved from Tory-run England to SNP-run Scotland than vice versa in the last few years – and no wonder. 

“Thanks to the SNP’s progressive tax decisions, the majority of people in Scotland pay less income tax than they would elsewhere in these islands, and average Scottish council tax bills are also hundreds of pounds lower than south of the border.”