Revaluation and reform of council tax in Scotland: design considerations and potential impacts

Preface

This report and the analysis underlying it was commissioned by the Scottish Government to inform engagement on potential council tax revaluation and reform options. The Scottish Government has also published a consultation, which can be accessed here.

The report makes use of data provided to the IFS via the Scottish Government, from Registers of Scotland, and the Scottish Assessors.

It also utilises data from the Understanding Society Survey, Understanding Society is an initiative funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and various Government Departments, with scientific leadership by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, and survey delivery by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and Verian (formerly Kantar Public). The research data are distributed by the UK Data Service.

The analysis was undertaken and written up by Stuart Adam, David Phillips and Sam Ray-Chaudhuri of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). They would like to thank Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) officials for comments on earlier drafts of this report. This report has been published as a Scottish Government report, and has been produced in accordance with Scottish Government publication guidelines.

Funding from the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (ES/TO14334/1), including for the processing of data and maintenance of the IFS’s tax and benefit microsimulation model, TAXBEN, is also gratefully acknowledged.