Scottish income tax (SIRT) rate decision depends on size of block grant

Most Scottish taxpayers, including SMEs, are unaware of upcoming changes to income tax with the introduction of the Scottish Rate of Income Tax (SRIT) in Scotland and do not realise they may have to pay a separate rate of tax from April 2016.

In research conducted for HMRC over the last 12 months into awareness of SRIT only one of 85 participants questioned across a range of individual taxpayer customer groups knew about it. Many participants were surprised that they had not been made aware that a major change to income tax was happening.