An independent Scotland could dramatically improve on the UK's tax system

A vote for independence could give Scotland a one-off chance to implement a simple, efficient system of taxation.

In all the talk about how Scotland might or might not end the decade an independent country, all sorts of things are being just a little too fudged.

Offering any sort of idea of just what Scotland might be like as a financially independent nation is tricky given that the referendum is just that - a referendum. As Tom Miers rightly points out it is not an election. So while it is possible that the Scots will vote for independence (although the polls still tell us that they are more likely to vote for continuing union) it is also possible that in the first election after the referendum they will not vote for Alex Salmond.

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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.