Whether you are a politician or a voter, do you know what the deadweight losses of tax are?
If not, you cannot start to sort Scotland’s economic and social problems.
That is because the damage inflicted to economies and communities when the wrong taxes are chosen is devastating (currently up to £1 trillion a year in the UK; Scotland up to £72bn). The level of damage, even if it were half as bad as this, is far worse than any worst case scenario that could be inflicted on us by the EU post-Brexit.
Voters need to press their political representatives to move from taxing wages and trade to raising revenue from the rents produced by society itself, or which are provided free by nature. Only then can the enterprises needed to empower communities across Scotland be free to add maximum (shared) wealth to our country.
AGR/LVT please!