Ian Swanson - Taxing debate

The Scottish Parliament will be debating the SNP's plans for Local Income Tax again this morning - thanks to a Tory motion.
The Tories are urging the Scottish Government to ensure that when it introduces legislation to reform local government taxation, the scope of the Bill will be wide enough to allow members to debate and vote on all options, including reform of the council tax, a land value tax and a locally-set LIT as well as the SNP's own proposals.
Predictably, the SNP's amendment declares the council tax discredited and calls for it to be abolished in favour of LIT.
There is still some time to go before any Bill is likely to be brought forward, far less voted on and it remains to be seen whether the SNP can build a majority to get it passed.
The signs are they will probably win support from the Lib Dems by compromising on the question of councils setting their own tax rate. But the Greens, and potentially Margo MacDonald, would still be needed to get the Bill through.
The Greens' favoured local tax system is a land tax and they hope the SNP might be willing to incorporate some element of that into the new system.
Labour has said the current system of council tax must be changed, but it has yet to come up with an alternative.
Local taxation is always a vexed issue and a minefield for would-be reformers. The puzzle is why politicians want to spend so much time talking about it.