I KNOW there are always calls to leave the referendum in the past and to talk about it as little as possible. However, I disagree as I think it is important to hold the Unionists and British nationalists to account for the misleading promises they made during that referendum. You will remember when Labour politicians stood side by side with their Tory compatriots spreading fears about Scotland facing tax rises if we became independent, yet even though Scotland voted No we now have Labour committing itself to imposing an additional tax on Scots if they are elected into government. The purpose of this tax is to offset and make up for the loss to the Scottish budget from Tory cuts – Tory cuts that we would not have to endure if we were an independent nation with an elected independent parliament. Therefore, Labour’s proposed tax increase is effectively a Union tax and I will refer to it as such from now on. It is the extra price they want to force us to pay for their No vote.

Firstly, it is important to outline why the proposed policy itself is ludicrous and ill-thought-out in its own right. Under the current devolution settlement, the Scottish Government will get the privilege of paying to raise half of income tax in Scotland – so with the basic rate of 20 per cent, 10 per cent is raised by the HMRC (on behalf of the UK Government) while the Scottish Government can raise the rest – 10 per cent if it wants to match the UK rate. This part is known as the Scottish Rate of Income Tax (SRIT). However, the Scottish Government can only raise all tax bands at the same time. This means a one per cent increase would apply to both the 20 per cent rate and the 40 per cent rate – it does not have the power to increase the higher rate of taxation alone, to make higher earners pay more. So any increase in tax would affect all income tax payers in Scotland.

Then we come to Labour’s cunning plan. The details of the proposal are sketchy at best, but the basic plan is to increase the Scottish Rate of Income Tax (SRIT) from 10p to 11p. This would affect everyone who pays income tax in Scotland – that means everyone with an income of over £11,000 would be liable for Labour’s new Union tax.

This would proportionately affect those on lower incomes more than those in higher salary brackets. A number of examples have been highlighted online (for example: http://calumcashley.blogspot.co.uk/ ) but in essence, low earners would effectively see their income tax bill proportionately rise by more than those on higher incomes. For example, an increase of 1p would see someone earning around £20,000 being hit by an effective increase of five per cent on their tax while someone on £200,000 would only see a rise of around 2.7 per cent.

To try to offset the impact of their Union tax on the low paid, Labour hastily threw together a plan for a “rebate” for the lowest paid. Yet, as is becoming more common with Labour, it failed to provide any details on how this is meant to work.

It is important to remember, however, that because we voted No and therefore still have incredibly limited power, the Scottish Government does not have the power to direct HMRC to pay a rebate. Therefore, Labour proposed using councils to pay a £100 rebate to income tax payers – which makes it a government “cashback deal” rather than an actual tax rebate. This then makes this “rebate” taxable income which further reduces its value (as it has to be taxed). Because welfare is not devolved either, it would also create further difficulties for those on benefits, ranging from Jobseekers Allowance to Working tax Credits, as these could all be affected by this “cashback rebate”. But how would councils know who to pay the rebate to? Either they would have to establish a new system to work out how each applicant was eligible (you would have to apply for the rebate as it would not be given automatically), or they would have to contract this work out to HMRC. It is also worth noting that contracting this work out would incur an additional cost also.

The simple fact is that Labour has absolutely no idea how its proposed rebate would work, no idea how the policy would affect those on benefits and no idea how many low earners would lose out. Labour’s proposed rebate, like the rest of this cunning plan, is unclear, uninformed and likely to cost councils extra money to administer.

There is though one key reason why this policy is so badly drafted – it was an idea dreamed up in a last-minute panic. Labour launched its Union tax on Monday, February 2, but on the previous Friday (29th January), the Scottish Parliament’s finance committee agreed with the Scottish Government that there should not be an increase in the SRIT.

Labour have two MSPs on this committee: Lesley Brennan and Jackie Baillie. When this was highlighted in a budget debate where Baillie promoted the tax rise, she claimed she wasn’t at the meeting when the policy not to increase SRIT was agreed. That may be true but committee reports tend to be circulated to all members for their comments before they are released to the public and the fact that the two Labour members didn’t mention Labour’s Union tax plan suggests that they were unaware of it.

If that is so, then is it any wonder that there is utter confusion about the tax, the rebate policy and the impact it will have on everyone in Scotland?

The initial proposal was meant to raise around £500 million to cover the cuts in the Scottish budget, but what is to happen in future years as Tory austerity further diminishes the Scottish budget? Will the Union tax continue to rise? Are we prepared to accept the precedent that we believe Scottish people should be taxed twice, not even for better public services, but merely to maintain the same level of service?

Labour seems to think offsetting Tory austerity cuts (which a large number of its MPs either voted for, or abstained from opposing) can be achieved by increasing income tax in Scotland. They want Scots to be punished twice by seeing the Tories cut our block grant and us having to pay for this with their Union tax.

Do Labour politicians really think we’re that daft in Scotland? They campaign alongside Tories in the referendum to allow the Tory Government to impose stringent austerity cuts on Scotland, they back the cuts, they refuse to hold the Tories to the infamous vow and then they decide that their only solution is to increase tax in Scotland to pay for Tory cuts.

The fact that this Union tax proposal is ill thought out, illogical and harmful is reason enough to discard the ridiculous idea. But the most powerful argument against this is quite simply: why should we have to? Scotland actively rejected the Conservatives at the election. It rejected the party’s cuts, austerity and ideology as it has done for decades. Why should we still have to endure at the hands of a party with absolutely no mandate to Scotland? Why should we have to pay an extra price in order to offset something we did not vote for? And above all else, why should we have to put up with the hypocrisy of a Labour Party that is now reaping the rewards of the No vote it fought so tirelessly to secure? They are part of the reason we are in this weak position as a nation and we cannot allow our citizens to pay the price for it.