New tax for rich will cost Capital

RICH foreign people living in Britain – what easy prey our new Chancellor Alistair Darling must have thought they would be.

Surely nobody will defend them. "Parasites" and "freeloaders" they'll be called, "they can easily afford it" people will say – and they have – if you care to look at some of the internet comment boards.

Left with few areas to increase tax that Gordon Brown hasn't already visited – and revisited – Darling announced in his pre-budget statement last November that non-domiciled residents of seven years residence will have to pay a flat rate tax of £30,000 – a sort of super poll tax for the rich – from this spring's Budget.

A consultation paper was released only in January and immediately he was in trouble.

You see these very, very wealthy people can easily afford to move abroad and often have other properties to flit to already.

I've no doubt that many non-doms, as they are called, can afford £30,000 – the sort of money that most readers probably don't earn in a year – but they didn't get rich by giving it away, especially to the black hole that is the Government and I don't think they'll hang around to stump up.

Americans will be especially hit – they are taxed by their Inland Revenue Service on their worldwide earnings – so by paying this £30,000 they will be taxed twice. A quick hop to Monaco, Dublin and Zurich or a more affordable low-tax location like Prague, will make a lot of sense to such swanky yanks.

This issue is not just important to the City of London, where so many non-doms reside and work – but also to a financial centre like Edinburgh. With probably more millionaires per square mile than any other city in Britain, Edinburgh's non-doms will be watching what their local MP, Mr Darling, will do. Expect to see property signs go up if he goes through with it.

Why should it matter to us? Well, they spend their spondoolies in swanky shops in Multrees Walk and have accounts at exclusive jewellers and support many jobs and invest in our property market, making Edinburgh wealthier and more attractive.

And yes, they still pay various other taxes. Take them out of the equation and somebody has to make up for that void – just when the world economy is expected to take a downturn.

It's no wonder that accountants reckon the Chancellor will make £800 million – but lose double that from this cunning stunt. Leaving me to conclude the idea is driven by junk economics or the envy that was meant to go out with Old Labour.

Sadly, voting Tory to keep taxes low won't necessarily solve the problem – in what was probably thought of as a jolly jape to hit Johnny Foreigner – this non-dom poll tax was first suggested by Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, only his hit was for £25,000.

Who still says the parties are different?

X-rated Princes Street
A scene in 2010….
"Hey Jessie, d'ya fancy a wee trip inty Embra wi' yon bus pass? Ah hear they've got awfy nice cawfee shops in Princes Street noo that Labour's back in!"

"Naw Magda, ah'd rather gaw tae Almondvale – it's actually got shops ye can buy things in, what day a want wi a cawfee, anyways? That's for yon letcherers an' bohemian types."

Having failed with the unpopular idea of putting underground shops feeding off our sadly dilapidated Princes Street Gardens, Labour's plans to reduce the amount of retail activity on the city's still greatest shopping street beggars belief.

It is of course true that there are many vacant properties above the first floors of Princes Street – but these are often sealed up to avoid the business rates that would be due on properties that are wildly expensive to convert to profitable use.

Remove the political barriers to investment and Princes Street will blossom, with or without a café culture. Just abolish business rates!

No marks for thinking
If Edinburgh's education department is to recover its overspend and avoid closing some of the more popular primaries there needs to be some inventive thinking.

An educational birdie tells me the real plan that was never unveiled was to close one of three Roman Catholic secondaries, splitting the pupils into the remaining two, releasing spare land for housing.

Daft? Consider then, the idea of closing St Thomas of Aquins, moving its pupils to the newly built Holyrood and St Augustines and relocating Boroughmuir into the suddenly vacant building off the Meadows. The council could then sell Boroughmuir's prime-site Bruntsfield plot to the highest bidder. It might even have some spare cash for a new Porty High school.

It will all be denied, of course, but my source tells me it's kosher.