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 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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