To want to move to England because of Scottish tax.

[Nogg]

Is anyone else thinking of moving to England because of tax. I’m a single parent and I am paying 7k extra tax a year. The place I live is run down. I really want to move but the only issue kids settled in ( failing) Scottish education system. I wonder if anything will change at next election? Hate SNP and what they have done to Scotland.

As an individual tax payer, the OP may not be missed but if enough higher rate tax payers leave, their combined tax certainly will be missed. Those who love to claim freebies are generally not paying for it!

Why don't you just move to a nicer place in Scotland if you don't like the area you're in? Having lived 50 mins south of London most of my life and moved to the Scottish Borders I can't get my head around your viewpoint. Life is SO much better in Scotland in pretty much every way.

All these comments saying ‘well leave then’ is not the answer. They will take their spending and contribution to Scottish society with them, we need everyone who has decided to make Scotland their home.

People are entitled to their opinion and it is good to hear. Often it’s difficult to openly express a view which those shouting loudest oppose. Remember when Devi Sirdhar told everyone ‘if you do not agree with Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP policy then you are not Scottish?!

Scotnet is a funny place; I hear so many folk moaning in real life and nobody ever says ‘well leave then, you won’t be missed’.

I joined my local community council to try and make my local area better. I have achieved absolutely nothing. Councils get most of their funding directly from the Scottish government not the council tax you pay (or don’t because you are exempt)
What a can of worms that was! ten years later and we are still discussing the same things; potholes, overgrown paths, school parking, Planning NIMBYS-which is a special form of racism as people were first aggrieved because they felt all the electricity from a solar farm was going to go to England, then the central belt, then the nearest city and now the next village is robbing us of all our electricity.
Speeding cars on rural roads is another favourite; when presented with figures proving that cars are not that fast it wasn’t believed and the council was accused of lying.

the apathy towards actually doing something in my area of Scotland is strong and the general opinion is that council should do more not them (civil contingency act of 2004 lays this all out in emergency situations). Councils are putting a lot of this on community councils. A councillor did try and organise a litter pick and I was the only one to sign up, so it was cancelled.

I’d be interested to know in what ways life is better?

Because of a four letter word….. LBTT!
£50K this house then £50K to move that’s 60k more than in England equivalent house purchase. That would pay for kids uni fees plus a few prescriptions thrown in.

@Tealeavesinthecup slower way of life, clean air, open spaces, much, much cheaper housing. I'm sure there are more but those immediately come to mind!

The borders does have cheaper house prices . Not everywhere else. That is because the borders is traditionally economically depressed with fewer jobs meaning the majority of young people leave the borders after school.

These are not exclusive to Scotland (many Scottish residents would argue they are lacking in their lives)
they also exist in the rest of the U.K.

It’s easy to say we have cleaner and better air and water when it is not being properly monitored.

Fergal Sharkey was in news recently again stating that hardly any water sites are being monitored for cleanliness in Scotland.

The monitor at Seagate in Dundee was not working a decade ago. You used to be able to check on council website but they seem to have removed that facility.

I suspect N/A means it’s not working, so not monitoring.

Levels of air quality

Dundee city information on air quality

i was in central London recently and the air felt very clean (cleaner than Dundee Seagate) and it was extremely tidy, no litter at all.
I could not say the same for our Athens of the North.

We also have a higher rate of suicide
Suicide rate in Scotland

I was around the Cirencester area last year and drove around a lot looking to see if it was somewhere I wanted to live. The roads were just SO much better. No litter, friendly people. It was really striking. I live somewhere where air pollution is very high. Pot holes in the roads, public services falling apart.

The Borders are lovely but agree many areas are economically depressed and tend to have a more elderly population. It is beautiful but has its downsides too.

@Nogg definitely wouldn't say where we are is economically depressed. It's been voted the best place to live in Scotland a few times. Even for 'high' property prices it cost significantly less to buy a 6 bed here than a 4 bed in SE England (our old house just sold for over a million pounds-a very standard semi in need of improvement)

We love it here, but everyone is different! Property is still very cheap in eg Northumberland-do you like it there?

I've lived over a fair few bits of England before moving to Scotland and I massively prefer Scotland. I feel much more at home with the "politics" in Scotland as my impression (Glasgow and rest of central belt) is that it is a more open place with less judgement than the places I lived in England.

Yes Scotland is more socialist, which obviously means higher tax (see also Norway) but things generally feel less dog eat dog (unless you mention the football).

When we left England we felt out of step with a lot of the people around us, I like the lack of Brexit Party (and successors) on local ballots and on billboards in fields.

Services in general feel better, GP is better than the (only one) in our old town, roads are similarly potholes, bin collections are better, hospitals are better in Scotland than any of the places I spent time living.

If I were more Conservative leaning, yep I'd probably prefer England to feel among my "tribe" but having got more lefty in my middle age, Scotland feels more like home than England...

@Randomsabreur thank you for putting all of that more eloquently than I did!

I forgot about the NHS. Higher taxes are worth it for that alone!

Scotland is only 7% BAME and England 18%. Where I live in outer London in the time I have been here has gone from 30% BAME in my borough to 62%. Colour of course does not matter but that does illustrate how many newcomers there are here and how crowded it is. There has been a lot of "white flight" to other areas..

most people would not like the tax system of Scandinavia in Scotland. The SNP could do this but have chosen not to, I wonder why?

I would be quite happy to have tax system more aligned to Norway (and Denmark) in Scotland: personal tax allowance on first part of earnings is a lot lower £500, than our generous £12.5k.
less rates which perhaps give more sense of collective obligation; I’m not sure most people in Scotland would agree though. The general societal pysche of Scandinavia is very different with more individual responsibility and more tolerance for the good of the majority.

The lack of political paraphernalia in Scotland is not indicative of the way the many feel; apathy has always been quite prevalent amongst my fellow Scots especially when things are not that apocalyptic. The independence movement were very clever to appropriate the saltire but people are fed up with the SNP.

Labour have been voted into Westminster so would argue that England is no longer right leaning, Wales is left wing they have had Labour in power since before Covid.

IFS (institute of fiscal studies)
states that overall NHS is no different in Scotland or England.
it seems like it depends on what you need it for,;
elective care and emergency care
is better in England.
NHS recovery in Scotland is lagging behind Emgland

@ThatAgileCoralBird we must have an excellent hospital then! The wait time for both A&E and operations/outpatient appointments has been so, so much faster for our family of 6 in Scotland than in England. It was impossible to get a GP appointment by the time we left England. I have always got an on the day appointment here. We are also all registered with an NHS dentist, which just wasn't possible in England.

The only thing we've personally found worse is speech therapy (as in there is none to be found!)

Maybe you can get a gp appointment easier than some areas of England but can you get specialist care? Some tertiary services are not offered in Scotland .

There are definitely major NHS issues in Scotland - Aberdeen Royal had to divert ambulances very recently and Forth Valley has been really struggling. Waits for elective surgery are terrible. Any gynae ops - if it isn't cancer if isn't likely to happen. Maternity care in Edinburgh is inadequate. Sources - BBC news & personal experience.

I’m going through the hassle of the GP trying to get me a referral to an English clinic as SNHS just simply does not do the specialism I require. It’s not good.

That's true but suppose someone had 3 kids and they all went to university? That is going to be expensive for the kids and the parents.

Whereas in Scotland it'd be free. £7000 extra in tax is nothing compared to what you'd have to pay for university and elderly care.

Do we need all our children to have degrees and go to university, do their subsequent decisions and actions show they value this freebie?
Are our graduates actually getting employment in Scotland that requires a degree?
i know so many graduates who are in employment such as retail, hospitality, leisure, care etc which only require the most essential Nat 5 qualifications.
Whilst I theoretically support a more highly educated society I wonder if the rigours of certain degrees are the same since Covid? are they even relevant to their future life. Do we have the finances to sustain this model? I wonder if my taxes are just going to a lot but not all young people to have a party for four years and prop up a failing industry which increasingly offers short term irrelevant employment.

I feel the exact some way and what has really pissed me off lately is the discovery you are taxed on your home postcode not place of work. I’m senior in local government and two senior colleagues live in England, keep their families down there, travel up a few days a week and work remotely the rest of the time and pay a whack less tax than I do.

What's wrong with the Scottish Education System?

Yes 🤗