New Scots tax body

Scotland is to set up its own body to collect new taxes claiming it can do so much cheaper than HMRC.

Finance Secretary, John Swinney, said Revenue Scotland will be established this year and be fully operational by 2015 - the same year the Scottish Government gets new taxation powers to introduce new taxes.

From April 2015 the Scottish Parliament plans to introduce and manage taxes on the purchase or leasing of land and buildings and the disposal of waste to landfill.

In a statement to Parliament, Mr Swinney said the cost for HMRC to administer the existing charges on behalf of the Scottish government up to the end of March 2020 would be around £22.2 million but the new system could the same job for some £16.7 million.

Mr Swinney outlined Scottish government plans to full exploit these powers and introduce two replacement taxes which would be embedded in Scots law, reflect Scottish values and Scottish circumstances.

A Tax Consultation Forum will be set up to draw in “the views of the taxpayer and expert communities”.

He launched the consultation for the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax to replace Stamp Duty Land Tax. Two more consultations are set to follow this year.

HMRC has already said on record that it could “in theory” veto requests to collect new landfill and property taxes if they deviated too significantly from the existing UK system.