Tax Advisory Group minutes: June 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Charlotte Barbour, President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation
• Prof. David Heald, Emeritus Professor in the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow
• Prof. Mairi Spowage, Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute
• Stuart Adam, senior economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies
• Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associate

Apologies

• Cllr. Katie Hagmann, COSLA Resources spokesperson
• Dave Moxham, Deputy General Secretary at the Scottish Trades Union Congress
• Dr. Jim McCormick, Chief Executive of the Robertson Trust
• Dr. Liz Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce
• Aidan O'Carroll, Chair of Revenue Scotland and former Chair of the Institute of Directors in Scotland

Scottish Government

• Lucy O'Carroll, Tax Director (Chair)
• Unit Head, Fully Devolved Taxes
• Unit Head, Tax Cohesion, Coordination and Capability 
• Senior Policy Officer, Tax Coordination and Engagement

Items and actions

Welcome and apologies

Lucy welcomed members and noted apologies from Jim McCormick, Dave Moxham, Aidan O’Carroll, Liz Cameron and Katie Hagmann

Minutes of the last meeting

Lucy asked for confirmation that members were content to issue the minute of April’s meeting. This was agreed with no additional comments by members.

Update following the Finance and Public Administration Committee (FPAC) meeting on 20 May 2025

Lucy noted that the Tax Advisory Group was discussed by the committee and reiterated the points made by the Cabinet Secretary regarding the Tax Advisory Group's role and schedule of meetings for the year.  Lucy also noted that the Cabinet Secretary had written to the committee putting those and other points in writing. 
It was noted that the letter does not yet appear to be on the Scottish Parliament website. Scottish Government officials will check on this. 

Opportunities for developing the Scottish Government’s approach to tax related legislative change

Lucy invited Ewan to present a summary of the current landscape on tax legislation and work done previously by the Devolved Taxes Working Group. 
Following Ewan’s presentation, members were invited to offer views. Key points were that:
⦁    It would be sensible to build on the interim report prepared by the Devolved Taxes Legislation Working Group (2020) and take account of work undertaken by the Welsh Government, and its scrutiny by the Welsh Senedd. 
⦁    Members that expressed a view supported introduction of a process to e.g. “tidy up” tax legislation on a regular basis. A fixed point in the calendar where changes could be made would improve transparency and provide stakeholders with clear opportunities to engage on any planned changes. It was however recognised that the issues to be considered to allow for these were complex.
⦁    Whilst proper parliamentary scrutiny of legislative change is needed, this would need to be balanced against the Scottish Parliament’s overall scrutiny time, which includes other legislative priorities. 
⦁    Given timing, there may be limited scope to engage Parliament on the issues within the current parliamentary term. This might however be something that the Finance and Public Administration Committee could consider when developing their legacy report; tax Officials may wish to discuss this with the Committee Clerks.
⦁    The approach taken to Part 2 of the Aggregates Tax and Devolved Taxes (Scotland) Administration Bill had meant that stakeholders did not have an opportunity to put forward propositions for change prior to the Bill’s introduction to Parliament. Separately, the use of secondary legislation in the past for some changes had limited the scope for scrutiny and prevented amendment. 
⦁    Scottish Government officials could consider preparing a list of the legislation used to make changes to tax legislation over time, to help assess the need for a specific legislative vehicle and consider options. 
Lucy thanked members for a productive discussion and drew this item to a close.

AOB

Lucy informed members that the next meeting would be in August, focussing on Council Tax reform. A date would be sent around shortly.