VIEW FROM THE HUSTINGS: Labour has to answer tax-raising questions

Tony Blair has successfully managed to avoid many of the tax issues that dogged the 1992 Labour campaign, but it was this very theme that set this marathon contest alight in Scotland with his comments that the tax-raising powers of a devolved Scottish assembly would be like an English parish council.

While aimed at reassuring voters in the south of England, it enraged Scottish voters who had just been asked to trust Labour to deliver real power to Scotland via an Edinburgh parliament. A ‘mere’ three pence in the pound is what Scots will have to pay for the new legislative assembly’s 129 MPs.

For the historians among us, this modest ‘tartan’ tax had the ring of the introduction of income tax at one pence in the pound as a ‘temporary’ measure to help pay for the Napoleonic wars.

Perhaps the accountant in me should welcome changes in tax legislation as it gives new scope for planning opportunities. Should I win my seat will I, for instance, having an English domicile, representing a Scottish seat, but with a Westminster employer have to pay such a tax? Will I still have to pay if I don’t get elected, but work here for an English employer some of the time on a Scottish project? Plenty of advisory work here by the looks of it.

Perhaps Gordon Brown will keep it simple and levy it on property, but how this will relate to an assessment based on income is equally unclear.

I thought we abandoned the concept of local income tax a long while ago as too difficult to implement. Brown might even be bold and go for a system run from the electoral role – Scotland’s very own poll tax. One thing is for sure, someone has to pay and allow an assembly the power to legislate.

The businessman in me sighs at such a mess and uncertainty. Still, that hasn’t stopped some businesses coming out in support of Labour during the campaign, though how much of this is genuine conviction and how much of it is an attempt by senior business people to curry favour with a potentially new government is anybody’s guess.

The other big issue which has split both the business community and politicians during the campaign has been Europe. However, my view from the hustings in Glasgow agrees with Austin Mitchell’s from Great Grimsby (10 April). The electorate is mainly focused on the ‘nuts and bolts’ issues such as education and housing.

This has certainly given me a target in this campaign as Glasgow has the misfortune to experience ‘real’ Labour in power.

Glasgow has suffered a recent 22% rise in council tax while getting poor services in return. The Scottish Socialist Alliance (Militant Labour) has also been very vocal during this campaign and I can’t but help agree with some of the questions which they have raised about the way Labour has managed councils it controls.

As a politician, I know it’s easy to spend other people’s money; as a businessman I know it is difficult to spend it wisely, and as an accountant I know Labour’s promised summer Budget will not change the tax burden so we all pay less. I hope we can get the answers as to who pays what before it is too late.