Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:16 pm on 23 January 2019.
Well, we don't have the numbers from the tax authorities yet—at least not reliable ones—because the transactions can come in later. So, we have a survey on a consistent basis, and I think that gives useful information. In the previous quarter, in the last quarter before this happened, I think we had about £390 million of transactions, as people rushed to get their transactions through under the old SDLT regime rather than paying LTT to the Welsh Government, and those are the differences that we can see because of taxes. I agree that the land transaction tax for commercial large properties is likely to be more sensitive to these changes in rates than many other taxes will be, but I think it does go to the principle, and I think we need to be very, very careful with what we do with income tax. I hope the Welsh Government will support this motion today, because it's in line with their manifesto, and, whatever we think about the merits of the argument, I trust that politicians believe in keeping promises and keeping to their manifesto.
But if, in the future, income tax rates do change, what's the impact of that going to be? Because, we only have these 10 per cent bands, so, to the extent those raise, perhaps the UK Government will suffer some of the revenue loss on the portion that it's still taking. But I think, on the other side, there are concerns that should weigh at least as heavily, because, when people pay less income tax and find ways to declare what was previously declared as income as either capital gains, or to incorporate and pay corporation tax and dividend tax only when they take money out of companies, those taxes will go to the UK Government rather than to the Welsh Government. So, it may be that if we had a somewhat lower rate of tax and, say, for someone paying 40 per cent tax in England, if they were to pay 38 per cent in Wales, they might respond by paying that tax rate, rather than incorporating and paying a dividend tax or paying capital gains tax. And the benefit to us of that would be two fold, because it would be the UK Government that would no longer have the revenue from those other taxes, whereas that revenue would come in as income tax—new income tax base—to get the whole of that rate. So, I hope Members will consider this motion, support this motion, and keep taxes low in Wales.