The neoliberal project: local taxation intervention in Scotland

This paper is concerned with one of the central economic aspects of neoliberalism namely taxation. The shifting of the burden of taxation from the rich to the poor has been one of the raft of neoliberal economic reform policies. However, there has been a growing social movement in the UK against such a regressive form of taxation. This was led by a socialist political party in Scotland. This party devised a new taxation system which was specifically designed to reverse some of the economic inequalities brought about by the neoliberal turn. The new form of taxation, the Scottish Service Tax formed a bill (the Council Tax Abolition and Service Tax Introduction (Scotland) Bill) which was put before the Scottish Parliament in February 2006. This paper, taking a political-economy perspective, sets the possibilities presented by the bill within the context of neoliberalism.