Publication - Research and analysis
Scottish Budget 2024 to 2025: attitudes to tax - public engagement
This document summarises the Scottish Government's engagement on public attitudes to tax.
Public Attitudes to Tax – 2023
The Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS) includes two questions on tax covering attitudes towards the level of tax and spending, and attitudes towards the redistribution of income. The latest dataset will be available in early 2024.
Since Autumn 2020, Scottish Government has included questions in a YouGov omnibus survey to gather data on public attitudes to paying tax and knowledge of the tax system.
In 2020 and 2021, figures 3 and 4 asked about Covid-19 spending. As such, these figures are not included below but you can find them here.
The questions are focused on the following areas:
- Attitudes to levels of tax and spending.
- Views on personal tax levels.
- Knowledge of the Scottish and UK tax systems.
Key Findings from 2023 data[1]
- 54% of respondents felt they understood the UK tax system and the UK taxes paid. This compares to 40% of respondents who felt they understood tax devolution in Scotland and the devolved taxes they paid. This is broadly in line with the last three years.
- Over half of the respondents (57%) agreed that government should redistribute income from the better off to those are less well off.
- 45% of respondents felt the amount of tax they paid was about right, with 36% feeling it was too high.
- 43% of respondents would be prepared to pay more taxes in order to fund public services. Of these respondents, 58% would be prepared to pay more in income tax and 37% would be prepared to pay more green/environmental taxes.
- Just 9% of people think the government should reduce taxes and spend less on health, education and social benefits.
- As with previous years, most people find information about tax from the UK Government website (27%), followed by the Scottish Government website (11%) and friends and family (10%).
| YouGov 2020 | YouGov 2021 | YouGov 2022 | YouGov 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agree Strongly | 26% | 26% | 34% | 27% |
| Agree Strongly | 32% | 33% | 33% | 30% |
| TOTAL AGREE | 58% | 59% | 67% | 57% |
| Neither | 26% | 27% | 22% | 26% |
| Disagree | 12% | 11% | 8% | 12% |
| Disagree Strongly | 5% | 5% | 2% | 5% |
| TOTAL DISAGREE | 17% | 16% | 10% | 17% |
| YouGov 2020 | YouGov 2021 | YouGov 2022 | YouGov 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reduce taxes and spend less on health, education and social benefits | 6% | 7% | 8% | 9% |
| Keep taxes and spending on these services at the same level as now | 46% | 48% | 40% | 42% |
| Increase taxes and spend more on health, education and social benefits | 48% | 46% | 53% | 49% |
| YouGov 2022 | YouGov 2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| I am prepared to pay more taxes myself in order to fund public services | 47% | 43% |
| I am prepared for some cuts to public services rather than pay more taxes myself | 18% | 19% |
| Neither | 21% | 23% |
| Don't know | 14% | 15% |
| YouGov 2022 (n=509) | YouGov 2023 (n=502) | |
|---|---|---|
| Income taxes | 68% | 58% |
| Green/environmental taxes | 36% | 37% |
| Local taxes (e.g. Council Tax) | 33% | 33% |
| Consumption taxes (e.g. VAT) | 29% | 27% |
| Other taxes [see Tab2] | 4% | 4% |
| Don’t know | 11% | 9% |
| YouGov 2021 | YouGov 2022 | YouGov 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Too high | 28% | 30% | 36% |
| About right | 52% | 47% | 45% |
| Too low | 3% | 5% | 3% |
| Don't know | 17% | 9% | 16% |
| Scotland (YouGov) | UK (YouGov) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
| Understand them very well | 7% | 7% | 9% | 7% | 9% | 10% | 11% | 8% |
| Understand them fairly well | 37% | 32% | 36% | 33% | 50% | 42% | 48% | 46% |
| TOTAL UNDERSTAND | 44% | 39% | 45% | 40% | 59% | 52% | 59% | 54% |
| Do not understand them that well | 33% | 35% | 29% | 34% | 26% | 31% | 27% | 30% |
| Do not understand them at all | 17% | 18% | 19% | 20% | 10% | 10% | 10% | 11% |
| TOTAL DO NOT UNDERSTAND | 50% | 53% | 48% | 54% | 36% | 41% | 37% | 41% |
| Don’t know | 6% | 8% | 7% | 7% | 5% | 7% | 5% | 4% |
| YouGov 2021 | YouGov 2022 | YouGov 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK Government website | 22% | 25% | 27% |
| Scottish Government website | 11% | 13% | 11% |
| Friends and family | 7% | 7% | 10% |
| My employer | 5% | 5% | 7% |
| Independent websites | 6% | 6% | 6% |
| Mainstream media (newspapers, TV and radio) | 10% | 11% | 6% |
| Independent tax professional organisations | 3% | 2% | 3% |
| Social media | 2% | 2% | 1% |
| Other | 2% | 3% | 2% |
| Don't know | 6% | 7% | 5% |
| Not applicable - I don't find information on tax | 26% | 18% | 22% |
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