{"id":326,"date":"2017-03-09T05:23:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T05:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slrg.scot\/?page_id=326"},"modified":"2020-04-03T13:13:31","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T13:13:31","slug":"introduction-holyroods-powers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/slrg.scot\/blog\/introduction-holyroods-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction: Holyrood’s powers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of course Westminster should have shared socially-generated wealth with all parts of the UK from the start (1707). Instead it\u00a0sacrificed peripheral UK prosperity so that vast\u00a0public value could continue to be directed into London site owner pockets.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, devolved tax raising powers now provide Holyrood with the opportunity to start changing damaging taxes to benign AGR. Any missed opportunities to enact AGR reforms would transfer responsibility for Scottish inequality from Westminster to Holyrood.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Instead of repressing jobs and enterprise by taxing them, Holyrood should collect Scotland’s socially produced surplus to properly fund public services. <\/span><\/p>\n

The mechanism that would redistribute our socially produced surplus (much of it today unjustly awarded to site owners) is Adam Smith’s Annual Ground Rent. R<\/span>eplacing taxes on\u00a0wages and trade\u00a0with AGR (aka Land Value Tax) would not only share that surplus fairly – tackling\u00a0embedded inequality\u00a0– but also boost and share<\/em> prosperity, reversing the age-old flow of people and resources out of our country.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Devolved tax powers allow Holyrood to cancel at least \u00a312bn of annual Scottish Deadweight Losses immediately. That’s about\u00a0one third of the total avoidable damage<\/em> automatically inflicted on the Scottish economy each year by\u00a0Westminster taxes\u00a0on wages and trade.<\/p>\n

Our report, Scotland’s Path to Prosperity<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(submitted to the Scottish Land Commission in 2018)\u00a0is a fully costed and highly detailed proposal demonstrating\u00a0how Holyrood\u00a0should\u00a0use devolved powers to replace a proportion of Income Tax with AGR\/LVT. Adopting our proposals would boost the Scottish economy by over 9% a year without raising any extra revenue.<\/em><\/p>\n

Holyrood\u00a0should\u00a0undermine<\/span>\u00a0the central pillar on which Westminster is built. And confront the reason why the UK Idea<\/em>, as currently packaged, could never\u00a0work in Scotland’s interests: the menace of\u00a0Rent-seeking<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Site rent as revenue is the policy which has powered the economies of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, allowing ultra-low taxes on incomes, sales and profits.<\/span> You will also be setting in motion forces that will <\/span>automatically…<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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x<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u2022\u00a0tackle austerity <\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u2022 boost\u00a0Scottish growth<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0fully fund Scottish\u00a0public services<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0escape annual deficits<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
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\u2022\u00a0address the housing crisis<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0reduce concentrated land holding<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0halt\u00a0premature deaths attributable to poverty<\/span><\/strong> (e.g. 17 years lost to\u00a0men in Drumchapel)<\/span><\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0end\u00a0social exclusion with its associated maladaptive coping mechanisms<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0provide full employment<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0share prosperity <\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0reverse depopulation<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0remove the burden of debt we are currently placing on our children and future generations of Scots <\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u2022\u00a0curb\u00a0pollution and the reckless use of\u00a0natural resources<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
x<\/span><\/div>\n
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Holyrood, please listen to the advice of\u00a0the retained Nobel Prize winning\u00a0members of your Council of Economic Advisers, Professors Joe Stiglitz and the late Sir James Mirrlees, who consistently advocate(d) such a revenue policy. The alternative is to allow\u00a0Scotland to remain a Rent-seeking zone. In which case, responsibility for sustaining the problems\u00a0that characterise such\u00a0cultures will begin to be shifted away from Westminster on to the shoulders of Holyrood.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of course Westminster should have shared socially-generated wealth with all parts of the UK from the start (1707). Instead it\u00a0sacrificed peripheral UK prosperity so that vast\u00a0public value could continue to be directed into London site owner pockets. However, devolved tax raising powers now provide Holyrood with the opportunity to start changing damaging taxes to benign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-326","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slrg.scot\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slrg.scot\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slrg.scot\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slrg.scot\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slrg.scot\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/slrg.scot\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1339,"href":"https:\/\/slrg.scot\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/326\/revisions\/1339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slrg.scot\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}