Greens to call for council tax revaluation in Holyrood debate
The Scottish Greens will today press for a council tax revaluation when MSPs debate reform of local taxation at Holyrood.
Andy Wightman, Lothian MSP and local democracy campaigner, will put forward an alternative proposal reflecting that most properties are in the wrong band.
A revaluation is not part of plans for higher charges proposed by the Scottish Government to bring in an extra £100 million a year for schools.
Under the reforms, set out by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in March, the average band E household will pay about £2 more per week, with those in the highest band paying an extra £10 a week - an average of £517 a year.
The changes follow a report by the Commission on Local Tax Reform which last year called for an end to the council tax and urged politicians to implement a fairer, more progressive and transparent tax to fund local services.
In the run-up to May's Holyrood election, the Greens proposed a gradual move towards a locally-controlled residential property tax based on up-to-date values with a system of reliefs and deferrals.
Mr Wightman said: ''Greens believe the government's package of reform is timid and fails to meet the ambitions set out by the Commission on Local Tax Reform, whose first recommendation was that 'the present council tax system must end'. It's shocking that it has taken ten months to debate the commission's findings. After nine years of the council-tax freeze there is now cross-party consensus that the system is broken. Bold change is needed. It's time for a fair local tax. While our proposals are to scrap the discredited tax and replace it with a residential property tax, today I am publishing an alternative statutory instrument - the Council Tax (Substitution of Proportion and Valuation_ (Scottish Green Party) (Scotland) Order 2016 - that demonstrates how the system can be made substantially fairer by more closely reflecting property valuations and by mandating a revaluation. At the very least, any reforms require a revaluation given current bills are based on values a quarter of a century old. And rather than sticking to just eight bands, why not have a greater number of bands so that properties of similar value aren't paying wildly different charges? Councils are being denied their right to vary tax locally and spend revenues on local priorities.''