Higher taxes, but more money in your pocket, too

When people discuss proposals such as the Common Weal, you often hear complaints that taxes would have to be sky-high to finance a Scandinavian-style welfare state.

Taxes are indeed a wee bit higher in Scandinavia (but not drastically so, once deductions are taken into account), but most Scandinavians nevertheless have more money coming into their bank account than their current Scots counterparts.

This is because salaries are typically higher in Scandinavia than here. (The exception is at the very top — if you make more than £100k a year, you might be better off under the current system.)

For instance, in Denmark the minimum wage is about £12 per hour, so almost twice as much as in the UK. I believe somebody on this salary would pay about 30% tax in Denmark, whereas they would pay nothing in the UK at the moment, so the take-home pay is still almost 50% higher for the Danish worker, although they’re paying much more tax, too.

Combined with subsidised child-care and other elements of the cradle-to-grave welfare state, most people would definitely be better off if an independent Scotland introduced the Common Weal proposals.