Chamber and committees

Hold on a second. Given that we have a bill that sets out to devolve the tax and get the optimum level of revenue, is that not a fundamental thing to ascertain?

They are in part 2 of the bill.

Where that power exists at the moment, it seems to be rarely used.

I have two further questions before I open the questioning to colleagues. My first one goes back to the point about there being 350 quarries. You said in your submission that you have identified 150 current UK taxpayers that are likely to be required to register for the SAT. I take it that that includes people with multiple quarries and that, therefore, it is not the case that there are 150 legitimate operators, plus 200 illegitimate ones, because you do not know how many of the latter there are. Is it right to say that?

John Mason will be excited about that.

Thank you, Gillian. Colleagues have exhausted their questions.

I make the observation that compliance surely increases revenue, even if that is not the reason for it.

As well as grappling with a lack of data, which means that we do not know how big the issue is, it appears that there has not been much enforcement over the past 20 or so years. You said that the aggregates levy is a small tax, but individuals sometimes get chased by HMRC for just a few pounds. I find it odd that an industry that generates tens of millions of pounds in revenue in Scotland alone seems to be able to decide almost on a voluntary basis whether it pays the tax. Is that a fair comment?

Thank you very much. I thank all our witnesses for their contributions today. We will continue our evidence taking on the bill next week, when we will hear from the Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance—the legendary, one and only Tom Arthur.

As that was the final item on our agenda, I now close the meeting.

Yes. We have not taken any evidence on that so far, so I would like to get your view on the public record.

You said in your written submission that it appears “somewhat heavy-handed”, and Eric Brown and Isobel d’Invervo say much the same in their submissions in that regard. We will take evidence from Revenue Scotland subsequently, but my understanding is that collection rates for those other taxes are around 98 or 99 per cent, so I understand what you mean. Can Eric and Isobel comment on that part of the bill?

Eric, you said:

“We would ... suggest further controls ... are placed upon the system of credits with interactions between”

Scottish aggregates tax and UK aggregates levy

“to reduce the likelihood of potential abuses taking place.”

Will you tell us more about that?

That is why we are talking about a possible loss to the Scottish taxpayer of £8 million to £10 million.