The Scottish Greens are proposing to increase taxes on high earners and rich property owners in an effort to channel up to £820m towards poorer voters.

The Scottish Green party (SGP) said a new 60% top rate of income tax on the wealthiest should be introduced alongside higher rates and wider bands for everyone earning above £19,000, which would raise £331m extra for public services.



Mirroring plans for a 60% rate advocated last year by the Green party in England and Wales, the SGP said higher taxes would also allow the Scottish parliament to cut income tax for everyone earning under £26,500 from April 2017.

In a bid to outflank Labour and the Scottish National party from the left before May’s Scottish elections, the SGP said it would entirely scrap the council tax, replacing it with a new residential property tax that would see the rates for more valuable homes increase more than threefold.

The SGP admits both policies would hit the wealthiest taxpayers in Scotland and suppress property values in the most expensive areas, but Patrick Harvie, the party’s co-convenor, said the tax strategy was fully justified.

Both tax policies would be introduced after the soon-to-be enacted Scotland Act, which will allow Holyrood to set its own income tax bands and rates from April 2017.

Claiming he was “startled” by the lack of ambition in the SNP’s far more modest income tax plans, Harvie said Scotland had to show “the boldness and courage of its convictions to use the [new powers] to have a fairer, more progressive approach to taxation.

“Unless we do that, many more communities will see the services they rely on continue to be under threat.” Both income and property wealth were far too unequally distributed, he said.

The new tax bands would start with a new personal allowance of £11,500, and then a “first rate” above that of 18% up to £19,000 – two points lower than the current basic rate of 20% – with a further “second rate” increasing the basic rate to 22% for those earning from £19,000 up to £43,000.

At that salary, a new 43% rate would kick in, replacing the old 40% rate for all those earning up to £150,000. At £150,000, the current 45% additional rate would be replaced by the 60% top band. In addition, the personal allowance would be phased out progressively for higher earnings with salaries above £100,000.

The Scottish Greens are hoping to win at least seven seats in May’s elections – presenting themselves as a radical alternative to the SNP for pro-independence voters, after watching the party’s membership surge to nearly 10,000 after backing a yes vote in the 2014 referendum.

The party previously called for a 0.5p across-the-board increase in tax rates in the 2011 Scottish elections, and its proposals in last year’s general election for an across-the-board “citizens income” of £15,000 a head have been shelved until Holyrood has full powers over welfare payments.

After implementing the first revaluation of homes in 25 years, the new property tax would see owners of the most expensive homes eventually paying up to £7,850 a year, nearly three and half times the current charge in Scotland for Band H homes.

Houses in the lowest A band would see local taxes slashed by 42.5% to £440, after a five-year transition period, reversing a long-term trend in which the council tax rates have disproportionately benefited the wealthiest homeowners.

The SGP admits the new 60% top rate of income tax would not raise any more than the current 45p rate it would replace, because some of the highest earners could leave Scotland.

But all other taxpayers earning over £26,000 would pay more and be less able or willing to move. An MSP on £60,685 a year would pay £1,261 more a year compared with the rest of the UK, it estimated.

Scottish government experts have warned that if only 7% of people earning more than £150,000 left the country because of a 50p top tax rate, then Holyrood would lose £30m in revenues. Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, has cited this research as a key factor in her decision to reject a 50p rate for the near future.

The SGP believes that a new residential property tax would raise £490m compared with the current council tax system. It would include a valuation of the land on which homes were built, to allow a new Danish-style land value tax to be introduced at a later date and shift far more tax-raising into council control.

However, Andy Wightman, the party’s expert on land reform and a Holyrood candidate in Edinburgh and the Lothians, confirmed that this £490m forecast was based on current council tax revenues. It did not include the effects of inflation or take account of new rights to increase council tax rates by 3% a year from April 2017, after Sturgeon scrapped the council tax freeze.