Higher taxes incoming on Tueaday

[Choosychoice]

If you earn £100-£125k you currently pay income tax at a marginal rate of 63%. This isn’t enough for the SNP who next Tuesday are increasing it to 65%. 🤯 in what world is this a reasonable thing to do, when money is being wasted left right and centre by these imbeciles on embassies with no political purpose, ferry contracts so bad we pay 10 x the going rate, and a department for constitutional affairs who’s whole purpose is outwith the devolution agreement. We’ve just spent millions trying to get the GRR past section 35 when the case was so weak it took 46 seconds for the judge to throw it out and rUK are (quite rightly) considering asking for the Scottish government to pay their costs.

I don’t mind paying more taxes for the child poverty measures, but raising taxes to allow these fiscally incontinent 5 year olds to waste again and again and again is farcical.

Good for you, hope you enjoy it.

Poor little Sophie.

There’s always been structural discrimination against poorer kids in Scotland.

If you need to level the playing field by giving places to more deprived kids then so be it.

Straight A’s are more impressive when you need to overcome more obstacles to achieve them.

Hell, it might even teach Fraser and Sophie some empathy.

If that’s directed at me I’m not an SNP Voter, no party at the moment has anything approaching a moral high ground.

I work in the middle of Dundee surrounded by SNP failures in the heart of their "Yes" city and where Humza lives, in spite of his job being in Edinburgh and his constituency in Glasgow.

Drug addicts are everywhere. Education outcomes are universally poor and there is a lot of crime. Resurfacing one side of a bridge took 6 months and caused weeks of tailbacks. Side 2 starts in March. The place is filthy.

Yes. V&A etc and all the places for Humza's photo ops but it really is shite. They are not really helping the poor. If they were Dundee would be much less shite.

And the ferries aren't just a wee boat for the holidays. The repeated cancellations mean lost cancer appointments and missed interviews. Teachers unable to attend training or students not able to go to open days.

I am a teacher. And education is terrible. I am old enough to remember when it was actually world beating and not just full of its own shite.

So it is not pay a bit more to help the poor. It is pay a bit more to watch the SNP piss it up the wall on roaming charges and sending Angus on his holidays or selfie Nicola to have her photos taken.

If any profession needs more diversity in this country then it’s law, and I’m speaking as someone who has worked in the sector for over 2 decades.

That’s a great and brave thing Edinburgh Uni done.

The 6k loans (with no bursary) applies for household incomes of 34k and above... that's probably not a family able to provide any substantial financial support. As you say it takes no account of living at home or away either.

There are a distinct group of kids who can only afford to go to local universities and if they can't get in, they can't go. The current approach is shameful.

Is there any data available on the destinations these kids ended up in when they didn’t get into their first choice course?

So far all I’ve saw is some extremely competitive courses awarded placed to more deprived applicants.

But not every kid was going to get into these courses anyway.

I agree that SIMD alone seem like an approach that although best intentioned doesn’t allow for nuance.

But the sentiment of recognising that overcoming adversity should be rewarded is a good and moral one.

I also highly doubt that many of the applicants who didn’t get into Law in Edinburgh Uni were unable to achieve A university place elsewhere in the city, just wouldn’t have been their first choice that’s all.

Unless there is data though there are only prejudices and beliefs.

"Aha. There it is. You have choices. Choices to pay more into your pension. Choices to move to England. People who are from deprived backgrounds don't have these choices."

And how will it help those from deprived backgrounds when we make those choices? I was happy to pay a little bit more, but not what they are asking now. Plenty others I have spoken to are similarly pissed off and looking at their options.

I paid a huge amount of tax on the taper rate and above this year that I could have avoided had I chosen to. They won't be getting that from me next tax year. Into my pension it goes until we can move.

Laffer curve anyone?

I think in lots of subjects, where you go makes a difference in terms of future opportunities. Once you are established and judged on your work record then it's a lot less important.

They might have got a place elsewhere in the city, but for a career like law there's a hell of a difference between Edinburgh and Napier. Now that is down to prejudice (within the profession) but it's very real.

When I first graduated I worked for a big consultancy with a very popular grad scheme. They got thousands of applications every year and they openly filtered on university. My current workplace is the same. An application from many unis won't even make it to the hiring manager.

So that blunt tool may well have a considerable long term impact on future earnings. And it is a hideously blunt tool; I'm looking at an area just now where the postcode boundary runs down the middle of the street, through a council/ex council estate. There's several sections where there are identical houses/flats either side of the road, but one side is SIMD 2 and the other is 3 or 4. The children either side of that road have had no discernable differences; they're living in the same houses, in the same schools. But because the overall postcode on the left hand side has more houses whereas the right hand side has more flats, they're in different categories.

So you end up with crazy scenarios:

• Rose lives with her single parent who doesn't work, so they live on benefits. She works really hard at school, gets AAAAA. She lives in a council flat on the left hand side of the road, in the SIMD 4 area.
• Daisy lives in a house on the right hand side in the SIMD 2 area with her two working parents who bought their house. She gets AAABB.

They were in the same schools, with the same teachers. They both apply for the same courses; Daisy gets an offer at Edinburgh, but Rose doesn't. She ends up going to Napier instead.

The bigger issue is that Tristram from the Cotswolds gets welcomed in with open arms with ABB at A level cause his place isn’t capped cause he’s paying. Rose and Daisy deserve their places much more than he does on merit, but he Juno’s the queue cause he’s English

@Meeplemakeglasgow if you the quote feature it helps, no one can see what specific points you're replying directly to (i.e. if you're just using "reply", the context is lost, I think?)

Very true; Tristram gets a place (potentially above Rose or Daisy) because he's:
a) English
b) willing to pay 9k fees per year.

Nobody gives a rats ass about how privileged he is - he could be like Rose, he could be the middle class son of two teachers, he could be an aristo. Doesn't matter.

But Rose literally CAN'T get that place, even though she deserves it and even if she's smart enough to know that it's worth her paying tuition fees back once she's working as she will almost certainly see the benefit in her long term income. She doesn't get that choice.

Same here. I have no skin in the game and have liked SNP less and less over the years. Many are getting weary of politics in general.

Agree, as a minimum Rose should be allowed 2 applications, one for a fees paid place and one for a paying fees place. Up to her if she goes for one or the other or both.

That way she actually does have choices and can compete more equally for a place.

And that costs scotgov nothing and the uni can still pick students on whatever criteria they want. They can direct the fee free spaces to widening participation and fee paid on a level playing field for everyone else.

That's actually not a bad idea - some concept where the Scottish Government funds places but acknowledges that they are limited and prioritised. You can also apply to attend just like students from the rest of the UK with fees attached.

Then students and families can make their own decisions.

Or, Scot gov provides a certain amount of funding per student that you can take to any university…yeah, dream on! Let’s just carry on underfunding Scottish unis and calling it free.

I totally get why the Scottish universities want non Scottish students. Because for every Scottish student they get £2k, for every non Scottish student they get four times that. For the same course.

@Meeplemakeglasgow it must be great where you live in order to be so flippant about the ferry fiasco.

This isn’t about a few tourist not getting their wee weekend in Arran but the livelihoods of the islanders.

These people depend on the ferries to get to hospital appointments, prescriptions delivered along with many things those who have never grown up on an island take for granted.

Maybe try and consider the absolute and very real detriment this has for the islanders as it is an absolute disgrace and still ongoing.

I'm from the north which is where people living in Scotland might choose to move or take up work as it's part of the UK. House prices are very comparable to Scotland, I'd say Belfast is much cheaper than Edinburgh. Many would say it's a lovely place to live and I know personally a number of people who have moved to NI since covid and home working and they are loving it. They've been able to buy really lovely properties and have a lovely standard or living. I'm tempted based on their experience.

They say all that stuff about kids not being able to buy in the UK too and I'd say for a first time buyer in Glasgow or Edinburgh they may have the same issue unless they get these crazy wages or buy in a less affluent area of the city. I agree in London or Dublin the property is unaffordable but there are other places where that is not the case.

This is all about, if someone has a choice and they are on a high wage, they might not choose Scotland. And we want people who pay tax in Scotland, more of them. We need these higher earners to want to come here and stay here. In a world where so many people now have freedom to choose where in the country they work, and where individuals will move for 'big jobs' we are shooting ourselves in the foot.

If you could say all you’ve said without qualifying it with “but Westminster blah blah blah” I might give you some credence, but you just can’t help yourself can you

This is a great idea.

As an aside, the tax movements already happening. There is really no way to police it - haha - https://www.thenational.scot/news/24007695.scotlands-police-chief-paid-lower-english-tax-rate/

Yeah, as I’ve explained I’m not an SNP Voter or that interested in the independence debate.

My point is that people who complain about the SNP f*ck-ups seem not to mention that the ferry issue pails into utter insignificance compared to the HS2 and PPE scandals.

As for ‘giving me credence’, get over yourself ffs..

Yeah it’s not just Dublin that is expensive now, unless your living in rural Roscommon you’ll struggle to believe the price increase.

Prices have almost tripled in Letterkenny over the past decade.

High migration has also impacted availability of housing there.

As for the north, don’t take this the wrong way but I don’t think many will make that move from Scotland.

Purely due to the fact sectarianism has such a day to day impact on people’s lives and the fear, rightly or wrongly, that the situation could deteriorate again.

The inability of the fundamentalists to compromise on Brexit, despite the fact it was their own fault and the threats of violence due to this will be enough to put most off.

For full disclosure my family are from the north and I still spend a lot of time there so I’m aware of the nuances and the many positives of the place (like outstanding education).

But there are many downsides, even if you lived in Malone you would have to teach your children about sectarianism, dangers and in general they would have less freedom.

I did think about moving there to be with family when my first was still young but the thought of moving somewhere where a large minority of people may be prejudiced towards her put me off.

I think many would feel the same.