The Very Meh Humza Yousaf Thread.

[Aufc]

11 hours ago, virginton said:

Health care, housing as a basic human right for all., a proper social safety net, public transport and secure communities.

Not the 30 years plus of political parties of all colours focus-grouping tax breaks at B2 and C1 income 'hard working families'. Or the Tory scheme of appeasing Mondeo man by cutting the cost of private car ownership in real terms for over a decade now.  

The refusal to grasp income and wealth distinctions for what they are enables the transactional, nonsense politics we now get all the time.

By the same token, i dont want my additional tax to go towards funding healthcare for people who have absolutely zero interest in trying to be remotely healthy which seems to be something no government wants to address. So I will just up my pension contributions and offset the rise. 

It is pretty mental that if you earn between 100k-125k in scotland next teax year, your effective tax rate will be 70%. No matter what you earn, everyone should be entitled to a personal allowance (i realise this isnt a devolved matter)

[Left Back]

2 hours ago, Leith Green said:

I know that in theory there is a cap on funded university places for Scottish students - however this is such a rare problem that it may as well not even exist. 

I have genuinely never heard of anybody who hasnt got the course or Uni they wanted * and **.

*2 years back, Edinburgh Uni stopped kids from George Heriots (a private school) from taking a Law degree, because there was obvious evidence that the school had manipulated the Covid era results - thats the only time I have heard of pupils being stopped from going to a specific course, and it only lasted one year.

** Dishonourable mention for St Andrews which deliberately sits on Scottish applications and tries not to reply in a reasonable time - which de facto forces them to choose another institution...........and hence allows St A to take on a rich Yank or Asian student.

When our son went to Uni not only could he not get into any of the courses he applied for there were no clearing places for Scottish students at all that year because the funded places were all taken up.  We paid for him to go to Uni in London.

Whether this is better because of Brexit as was claimed I don't know.  2 minutes on google would indicate that isn't the case though.

https://www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/clearing/scotland/

[Leith Green]

13 minutes ago, Left Back said:

When our son went to Uni not only could he not get into any of the courses he applied for there were no clearing places for Scottish students at all that year because the funded places were all taken up.  We paid for him to go to Uni in London.

Whether this is better because of Brexit as was claimed I don't know.  2 minutes on google would indicate that isn't the case though.

https://www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/clearing/scotland/

I cant comment on the specifics of your sons course, obviously - but in general, any kids who either dont meet the entry requirements for a course, or dont receive an offer are automatically entered into clearing via UCAS.

I would guess that late applications will have problems wherever country they are in.

Hope he did well.

 

[superbigal]

Quite amusing even for a Tory

 

 

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

1 hour ago, Aufc said:

By the same token, i dont want my additional tax to go towards funding healthcare for people who have absolutely zero interest in trying to be remotely healthy which seems to be something no government wants to address. So I will just up my pension contributions and offset the rise. 

It is pretty mental that if you earn between 100k-125k in scotland next teax year, your effective tax rate will be 70%. No matter what you earn, everyone should be entitled to a personal allowance (i realise this isnt a devolved matter)

I'll get the tiny Stradivarius out for folk earning over £100k.

[Left Back]

1 hour ago, Aufc said:

By the same token, i dont want my additional tax to go towards funding healthcare for people who have absolutely zero interest in trying to be remotely healthy which seems to be something no government wants to address. So I will just up my pension contributions and offset the rise. 

It is pretty mental that if you earn between 100k-125k in scotland next teax year, your effective tax rate will be 70%. No matter what you earn, everyone should be entitled to a personal allowance (i realise this isnt a devolved matter)

I think you mean marginal tax rate and it would be 69.5%

Effective tax rate would be something like 40% depending on where in that bracket you fell.

[Aufc]

58 minutes ago, Left Back said:

I think you mean marginal tax rate and it would be 69.5%

Effective tax rate would be something like 40% depending on where in that bracket you fell.

Yeah I did! So aye still madness

[Aufc]

1 hour ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

I'll get the tiny Stradivarius out for folk earning over £100k.

Only 11% of Scottish adults pay the higher rate and only 0.7% pay the top rate. Yet they contribute about 65% of the total income tax take. So, despite your sarcasm, the country is pretty reliant on them. 

[scottsdad]

3 hours ago, Left Back said:

When our son went to Uni not only could he not get into any of the courses he applied for there were no clearing places for Scottish students at all that year because the funded places were all taken up.  We paid for him to go to Uni in London.

Whether this is better because of Brexit as was claimed I don't know.  2 minutes on google would indicate that isn't the case though.

https://www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/clearing/scotland/

Interesting discussion on student finance in Scotland. A good explanation is given here. 

For my perspective, each uni has a cap on numbers and it isn't always easy to predict what the "market" will be. We launched a new programme 2 years ago in our uni expecting 20-30 students to apply initially. Over 500 applications came in. Far more popular than anticipated. Other programmes recruited fewer than expected so the new programme mopped up some of that availability. But ultimately it is no longer an absolute that if you meet the requirements of a programme you get in. And unis don't really want to go into clearing except for the students that bring extra cash (RUK, international or SIMD20).

The Scottish Government has pulled £100 million out of the Scottish HE sector this year and that is baked into future projections. The central money coming to unis for undergraduates has been declining in real terms for ages. Colleges also badly hit. 

Then there are things like graduate apprenticeships. Launched a few years ago this was a stream of "extra" money for unis. Unis got paid x amount per graduate apprentice, and they hired staff to manage these....then the Scottish Government changed it. Pulled all the funding and said that a) the GA's were now part of the cap and b) unis who had GAs had to keep them or the cap gets reduced. So for every GA student we have that's one less place on a mainstream programme. 

The uni I work in gets 9% of its total budget from the Scottish Government, to put it in perspective. But this keeps declining, and the insanity of the home office visa restrictions means our international recruitment is tanking also. University finances are under huge pressures at the moment. 

[ICTChris]

Article by Dr David Bell, formerly of Stirling University, about the marginal rates of tax etc. it’s quite a good explainer about the marginal rates discussion.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/better-ways-to-boost-scotlands-coffers-than-by-raising-income-tax-f7dztmkff
 

1 hour ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

I'll get the tiny Stradivarius out for folk earning over £100k.

As the article says above, the affect of having such higher tax rates could be more than some people who earn a lot paying a bit more.

Quote

my concern is that it will be difficult to attract the workers and investment to Scotland that are needed to generate sufficient growth to make these spending decisions less painful.

The cash raised by this, when behavioural affects are taken into account, is very small. From the Scottish Fiscal Commission the money raised from the top rate increase is £9m.

[Todd_is_God]

Humza says that taxing the wealthiest in Scotland more than elsewhere in the UK helps provide better public services.

Whilst those on £43k+ a year are certainly fairly comfortable, i'm not sure they are "wealthy"

Does the additional tax already generated in Scotland actually provide better public services in Scotland? Or is most/all of it swallowed up by paying the people providing those services more than in the rest of the UK to provide the same level of service?

Edited December 20, 2023 by Todd_is_God

[scottsdad]

And from today

Scottish ministers cut spending on free university places

[vikingTON]

The issue is not with the tax rise as much as it not even touching the sides of the ludicrous CT freeze which was announced on the back of a fag packet by Yousaf. The obsession with securing a handful of pet projects from cuts means that rest of the budget items (see above) get significant cuts once again too. That's simply not a sustainable choice after many years of the same practice.

The CT freeze is crap politics too as releasing local authorities to raise CT also means that they have to determine the trade-offs between generating revenue and cutting services. The budget doesn't deliver better services - at best, it delivers a decline in services that is less pronounced than in England/Wales. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by vikingTON

[Cardle is Magic]

The Council Tax freeze decision was fucking insanity tbh.

A deeply flawed and rather pathetic attempt to win over “aspirational” voters.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Cardle is Magic

[Leith Green]

30 minutes ago, orfc said:

Any money raised won't be going on better roads...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-67771630

10 years is basically the SNP going "f**k it, someone else can sort it out"

Presumably the same party that was in power pre SNP and did the square root of f**k all about it then?

eta - also for some balance on the actual budget, the (Labour) Welsh govt gave their councils a 3.1% rise v Scotlands 5% rise. 

The Labour welsh govt has a £1.3 bn "black hole" to fill - and Labour (both there and nationally) are blaming the Tory govt for this.

In Scotland? Our £1.5bn black hole is blamed - by Labour - on the SNP.  

Its laughable.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Leith Green

[ICTChris]

16 minutes ago, Leith Green said:

Presumably the same party that was in power pre SNP and did the square root of f**k all about it then?

eta - also for some balance on the actual budget, the (Labour) Welsh govt gave their councils a 3.1% rise v Scotlands 5% rise. 

The Labour welsh govt has a £1.3 bn "black hole" to fill - and Labour (both there and nationally) are blaming the Tory govt for this.

In Scotland? Our £1.5bn black hole is blamed - by Labour - on the SNP.  

Its laughable.

Has the Welsh government frozen council tax, preventing councils from raising their own funds?

[Leith Green]

1 minute ago, ICTChris said:

Has the Welsh government frozen council tax, preventing councils from raising their own funds?

No, they are allowed to put it up by 5%.

They are also putting up tuition fees and other things like dental charges.

My point is that anyone suggesting that a Labour administration would do markedly better is living in cloud cuckoo land, as all any devolved administration is doing is slicing an ever thinner cake up in different ways - all of which are open to debate.

[Caledonian1]

4 hours ago, Aufc said:

Only 11% of Scottish adults pay the higher rate and only 0.7% pay the top rate. Yet they contribute about 65% of the total income tax take. So, despite your sarcasm, the country is pretty reliant on them. 

I had a quick look at Linkedin earlier - full of gammony tory greedy entitled p***ks - I really wish they would go ahead with their threats to move from Scotland now that they are paying around £150pa extra on their £80k salary - wait til they see house prices in England and have to pay for Uni, prescriptions, water bills and poorer services.

They would contribute more if they didnt use tax avoidance schemes and overseas bank accounts

[Leith Green]

4 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Interesting discussion on student finance in Scotland. A good explanation is given here. 

For my perspective, each uni has a cap on numbers and it isn't always easy to predict what the "market" will be. We launched a new programme 2 years ago in our uni expecting 20-30 students to apply initially. Over 500 applications came in. Far more popular than anticipated. Other programmes recruited fewer than expected so the new programme mopped up some of that availability. But ultimately it is no longer an absolute that if you meet the requirements of a programme you get in. And unis don't really want to go into clearing except for the students that bring extra cash (RUK, international or SIMD20).

The Scottish Government has pulled £100 million out of the Scottish HE sector this year and that is baked into future projections. The central money coming to unis for undergraduates has been declining in real terms for ages. Colleges also badly hit. 

Then there are things like graduate apprenticeships. Launched a few years ago this was a stream of "extra" money for unis. Unis got paid x amount per graduate apprentice, and they hired staff to manage these....then the Scottish Government changed it. Pulled all the funding and said that a) the GA's were now part of the cap and b) unis who had GAs had to keep them or the cap gets reduced. So for every GA student we have that's one less place on a mainstream programme. 

The uni I work in gets 9% of its total budget from the Scottish Government, to put it in perspective. But this keeps declining, and the insanity of the home office visa restrictions means our international recruitment is tanking also. University finances are under huge pressures at the moment. 

Genuine question - do you think this will change for the better under a new govt?

Presumably Labour, when they get in, will want to introduce tuition fees to "bring Scotland in line" with rUK?

Obviously this will bring in far more £££ to the individual Universities than they presently get from the Scot Govt - but the flipside is that many of our young people are then saddled with a large student debt for decades - or life*

 

*I await the first smartarse who comes along and says "aye, but xyz% of them will never repay that debt".

[Trogdor]

17 minutes ago, Caledonian1 said:

I had a quick look at Linkedin earlier - full of gammony tory greedy entitled p***ks - I really wish they would go ahead with their threats to move from Scotland now that they are paying around £150pa extra on their £80k salary - wait til they see house prices in England and have to pay for Uni, prescriptions, water bills and poorer services.

They would contribute more if they didnt use tax avoidance schemes and overseas bank accounts

I take it you are referring to comparing their tax in 23/24 to 24/25?

The divergence to an English taxpayer earning the £80k means c.£2,350 more income tax per year. That's significantly more than the £150 per annum and really should be the figure you quote when comparing especially when you cite house prices and tuition fees down south.

I don't really have much sympathy for those on £80k tbh. As I've said previously its those on £43k - £50k who are being hammered by the Scot Government's 'progressive' tax system.