Correspondence regarding the Scottish Income Tax 2023-24 fact sheet: FOI release

Information requested

This request concerns the Scottish Income Tax 2023-24: factsheet, published here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-income-tax-factsheet-2023-24/documents/

The factsheet includes this remark:

“Those earning less than £27,850 - which is 52% of Scottish taxpayers (1.47 million people) - will continue to pay slightly less Income Tax in 2023-24 than if they lived elsewhere in the UK.” Please provide full details of the modelling, including all relevant internal correspondence, spreadsheets, and sources, which justified this remark.

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, I can confirm Scottish Government does not hold some of the information you have requested.

There are no separate spreadsheets calculating 52% because the figure is extracted from the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s (SFC) forecasting model that was used for Budget 2023-24. The 52% figure was calculated by Scottish Government analysts using the SFC forecasting model.

The figure showing that 52% of Scottish taxpayers were forecast to earn less than £27,850 was drawn directly from the SFC’s Income Tax model by Scottish Government analysts, which was used to produce their forecast of Scottish Income Tax revenue at the 2023-24 Scottish Budget. It is normal part of the forecasting process that the SFC shares its forecasting models with the Scottish Government - as outlined in the Protocol for engagement between the SFC and Scottish Government.

To calculate the 52%, the forecast number of taxpayers earning below £27,850 was divided by the expected total number of taxpayers in 2023-24.

The 1.47 million figure mentioned in the factsheet can be worked out using published data—by applying the 52% to the total number of taxpayers shown in the SFC’s tax supplementary tables here: Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts – December 2022 | Scottish Fiscal Commission

More information on how the SFC forecast Scottish Income Tax can be found here: How we forecastincome tax – May 2021.

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