‘Fairer’ Council Tax? A Pay-More Plan for 80% of Edinburgh

If you own a home in Edinburgh, brace yourself: four out of five properties in the capital could see higher council tax bills under the Scottish Government’s latest stab at “reform.”

A consultation launched this week sets out four ways to “modernise” council tax — all supposedly fairer, all revenue-neutral, and all, by coincidence, likely to squeeze the same working and middle-class households that already carry most of the load.

According to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, almost every Edinburgh household would pay more under each of the options on the table.

Four roads to the same destination

Option one is the “do-nothing but revalue” model: keep the old 1991 system, just update property prices to something resembling the 21st century. It’s cosmetic reform — the kind that quietly shifts families up a band or two without changing the headlines.

Option two brings in a 12-band system, supposedly softening the jumps between property types but ultimately raising bills for the top three-quarters of homes in Edinburgh.

Option three does the same thing, but with a progressive twist — a polite word for charging anyone with a half-decent postcode a little extra “for fairness.”

Option four adds even more bands — fourteen in total — fine-tuning the redistribution until, surprise, 83 per cent of Edinburgh homes still pay more.

Numbers game

In East Lothian, about three-quarters of households would pay extra. In Midlothian, two-thirds. In West Lothian, around half. “Revenue neutral,” of course, means someone still pays — just not the people writing the policy papers.

Finance Secretary Shona Robison said the government was “not advocating for a specific reform,” only looking to “build consensus.” Translation: it’s an election year, and nobody wants to be the face of a new tax rise.

She also warned that whatever finally emerges would “require a long delivery period and would likely not be complete in this decade.” Which, if nothing else, is the most Scottish civil-service sentence ever written.

‘Unsurprising’ for Edinburgh

Professor Richard Kerley of Queen Margaret University said the impact on Edinburgh homes was “unsurprising,” given the city’s wealth gap and inflated property prices. But he wasn’t impressed by the banding obsession either.

“The problem with any banded system is where you draw the line,” he said. “More bands help a bit, but you’ll always create new inequities. A system based on actual market values would be fairer.”

Fairer, maybe. But fairness doesn’t poll well when it means asking Edinburgh’s homeowners — already convinced they’re over-taxed — to pay their real share.

For now, the council tax consultation runs until January 30. Expect the usual noise about fairness, efficiency and “modernisation.” And expect, as ever, that the bills will still rise faster than the wages.

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