The new Scottish tax regime: gesture politics at its most pathetic

The SNP’s change to income tax has alienated the most productive members of society and put the economy and revenues at long term risk, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

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Derek Mackay and Nicola Sturgeon: put the economy at long term risk
(Image credit: 2017 Getty Images)

If you are reasonably high-earning and ambitious, and thinking about taking a job in Scotland, you may be thinking again this week. Last week's Budget (which proved yet again that the SNP has got to get in some new talent if it wants to hang on to power much longer) raised income taxes on an awful lot of the population with a few new bands and a few new rates you can now pay 0%, 19%, 20%, 21%, 41% and 46% in Scotland.* Everyone earning over £33,000 will now pay more tax in Scotland than in England. That's 45% of the working population...

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.