With the political campaigns for the Scottish Parliament officially underway, local Conservative candidate Jamie Greene released a message to voters in North Ayrshire telling them that he would "fight against any tax hikes for hard working tax payers in Scotland."
In the first of the party leader’s debate to be televised the issue of taxation was hot on the agenda as the various party representatives went head to head on their differences and plans.
Nicola Sturgeon admitted that the Scottish Government will not pass on tax cuts announced by the UK Government in last week’s budget, whilst confirming that she was not against the concept of a 50p tax rate. Labour confirmed its position of adding a penny in the pound to every Scottish tax payer who earns over £20,000.
Mr Greene commented on the issue by saying "Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that she effectively wants to make Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom. In the last five years alone, 140,000 Scots have been dragged into paying the higher rate of income tax, including public sector servants such as nurses, teachers and policemen and women. I think this is deeply unfair on hard working tax payer"
Commenting on Labour’s proposals he added "Labour confirmed that they want to tax Scotland back to the 1970s with a new property tax. Adding to the tax bill of low and middle income families is worrying. This only confirms Scottish Labour has become the enemy of aspiration and instead are a party of dependency and envy. Going into this election, we have a government promising to put up taxes and a main opposition party saying taxpayers should be hammered even harder. Only the Scottish Conservatives will stand up for Scotland's workers. You should not have to pay more in Scotland than you do in the rest of the UK. End of."
Voters go to the polls on May 5th in what looks to be a tight race to see which party which will form the official opposition party in Holyrood with various polls putting Labour and the Tories neck and neck by number of seats.