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Income of Scotland’s super rich soars as record numbers of Scots struggle to pay council tax bills

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Elaine Smith MSP

The income of Scotland’s top 1 per cent has soared by 89 per cent in the past eight years, according to new analysis from Scottish Labour.

The party said it had analysed HM Revenue & Customs data and found the total income in Scotland of people earning over £150,000 year has increased from £3.7 billion in 2010/11 to £7 billion in 2015/16.

The findings come as new data relating to Scots living at the other end of the economic spectrum from the Accountant in Bankruptcy, a Scottish Government agency, showed that the number of Scots issued with warrants for not paying their council tax has rocketed by nearly 40 per cent in the last five years.

The figures show a total of 463,729 summary council tax warrants were issued in 2016-17, up 38 per cent from 337,089 in 2011-12.

The warrants can mean people having their bank accounts frozen and wages stopped. In addition, sheriff officers can be given the power to remove belongings from someone’s home to repay the debt. Failure to respond to the council’s final notice can lead to a 10 per cent penalty on the original debt.

Scottish Labour claimed that while Scotland’s wealthiest are seeing there incomes rise, the contrasting council tax data showed just how many people were struggling with the “cost of living crisis” and said it was now time the SNP Government replaced the council tax, urging ministers to do more than simply “tinker around the edges”.

Labour Shadow Cabinet Secretary for the Eradication of Poverty and Inequality Elaine Smith MSP said: “These figures show the failure of the SNP and the Tories to make our economy work for working class people.

“SNP ministers claim that the fundamentals of our economy are strong – but for too many families in Scotland our economy is fundamentally broken.

“Our economy needs radical change so that it works for the many. The richest one per cent in Scotland owns more personal wealth than the whole of the poorest fifty per cent.

“This is no time to tinker around the edges. We cannot simply manage our way out of it: we must transform the system that creates poverty and inequality.

“Only Labour will deliver the real and radical change Scotland needs to and poverty proof our policies to ensure the eradication of poverty is at the heart of everything government does.”

Labour Finance spokesperson James Kelly added: “These figures show we need to drop the timid tinkering on tax we have seen from the SNP.

“It’s time for real change, not just more of the same: a more equal Scotland where the broadest shoulders bear the biggest burden.

“The income of Scotland’s super rich is soaring - but the SNP’s income tax changes tinkered around the edges, putting only a penny on the top rate.

“The impact of that is cuts to public services and squeezed living standards for working class people in Scotland, with over 400,000 people in Scotland earning less than the living wage.

“Only Labour is willing to take the bold steps we need to see on tax, by making the richest few pay their fair share to fund the public services we all rely on.”

 

 

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