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If the Scottish government proposed to increase tax by 1% and make trains free would you be in favour? (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/scotland@lemmy.world
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Assume every tax rate except for the "personal allowance" was increased by 1% to fund free train travel. That would mean someone at the median annual income of £38k would pay about £254 extra tax per year ((38000 - 12570) * 0.01)

Would you be in favour of this?

Some numbers for context:

The government raised £17.1 billion in 2024.

The ScotRail revenue for 2024 was £351m (page 17).

So to offset the cost of tickets, the government would have to raise £351m which divided by the 2.46 million people in work would be an average cost of £140 extra per person collected per year, so I believe 1% may be able to pay for it comfortably, and even improve the service, to compensate for the extra demand on free travel.

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[–] -1 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I think the issue is that once you've got the extra money there are more pressing things to spend it on. Public transport is great but hard to say no to health and education.

Then there's the broader issue of the laffer curve where raising taxes can yield less than you'd expect because people start to re-locate by buying a bungalow in England to claim as their main residence.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Laffer curves are likely nowhere near relocation levels currently. It's a red herring mostly that right wingers like to point to. With no evidence we close to a peak

    It is hard to argue that trains trump healthcare and education though

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    The laffer curve is a real phenomenon. I won't die on the hill that it would happen in this case but it's still something to consider when raising taxes.

    Agree that people making all the noise about relocating haven't actually done it. Was a bad example! People doing things like increasing their pension contributions to avoid going over 100k and losing their tax free allowance is a more concrete example.

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