THERE will be no increases in council tax anywhere in Scotland this year after the last local authority yesterday confirmed that bills would be frozen.
Clackmannanshire voted in favour of pegging its 2008-9 council tax at this year's level.
The announcement came as both Labour and the Tories hit out at the SNP's plans for a local income tax, claiming it would take power away from local counci
ls.
The only one of Scotland's 32 councils not to freeze council tax next year is Labour-led Stirling, which has reduced it.
Wendy Alexander, the Scottish Labour leader, criticised the proposed local income tax as a "a power grab by the centre" in a speech at the annual conference of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the council umbrella group.
"Hiking income tax for every working Scot and then passing the proceeds on to local councils will end local financial accountability and be bad news for local democracy," she said.
"It is misconceived and anti-competitive and will clobber hundreds of thousands of hardworking Scots.
"Higher rates of income tax for all those in work robs local government of current powers and responsibilities over local spending levels."
The SNP's plans would see local income tax set at 3p in the pound across Scotland.
Also addressing the conference in St Andrews, Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Tory leader, said she backed the council tax freeze, but opposed local income tax.
She said the scheme was a "national income tax – nationally set, nationally collected and no doubt nationally distributed by a Nationalist government to every local authority at national government's whim".
The full article contains 276 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
