Executives ‘demanding higher salaries to move to Scotland’ to compensate for SNP tax hikes
Around 1.5 million Scots with a salary over £28,850 are on course to pay more in income tax from April than if they lived in England
Whether they’ll get them is another matter of course.
At heart this is about what people regard as “their pay”. Their pre-tax salary or their post-tax one?
And, weeell, it’s difficult. Because once you get into those higher reaches what you pay in tax becomes something of a choice. How much is stuck into a pension makes a difference. Are savings inside an ISA or not (doesn’t change this year’s income tax but still, it changes taxation of overall income).
We can also look to London, where property prices are so much higher, and see that gross income is indeed higher to compensate. So, to some extent net income after housing costs is something that determines wages.
But then the total answer is that it’s the everything that one gains from working in a specific place, time and job. How good are the schools, the hospitals, are the bins emptied, do the ferries run on time (are there ferries?) and on and on. It’s the total utility gained by expending one’s labour.
So, the correct answer is yes, post-tax income matters for wage determination. But so do all sorts of other things and how much of each, weeell……
In this case the act of moving involves a pay cut, all else being equal. I don’t think you need overly analytical about this one, only fools like Spud won’t see and understand the disincentives involved.
In two years time Birmingham City Council Tax will have increased 10% more than elsewhere. I look forward to an analysis showing that house prices and rental costs reduced slightly compared to adjacent boroughs.
Proving once again that property taxes are incident on the landlord.
On SCO, if people valued no tolls, free museums and prescriptions, the gold buses, free uni, nationalised water, there would be some boffin calculating that they had already been moving there. Census shows population growth of 5% in last 20yrs in SCO, England 6.5% in 10.
Of course, Bongo, it could merely indicate that Humza Useless has been less successful in his diversity efforts than Fishi…
As Tim says, there are multiple factors at play. And the trend for most of them is negative. So I suppose a hardship premium would need to be quite substantial.
“are there ferries?” That question is clearly a hate crime directed at the Scotnaz government so you’ll be for the high jump, matey.
> How good are the schools, the hospitals, are the bins emptied, do the ferries run on time (are there ferries?) and on and on.
Hence why they want more money to move to Scottland;)
Is that the direction of causality, or is it the other way ’round: high incomes allow housing prices to expand?