Revenue Scotland - Equalities Mainstreaming report 2024-2028

Foreword

In Revenue Scotland, we strive for equality, diversity, and inclusion to be part of our DNA. We want to create a culture where we truly celebrate our diversity, embrace our inclusivity, and achieve better equality for everyone.


That is why we set ourselves targeted equality outcomes to guide our efforts from 2020-2024 to continue to embed equality across all of Revenue Scotland’s activities as both a service provider and employer.


This report shows the journey that we have been on over that period. It is interspersed with many and varied stories from our staff showing our continued commitment to developing and integrating equality, diversity and inclusion in our culture and behaviours, so that it is integral to our day-to-day work and decision making. The stories demonstrate how much these efforts
mean to our staff, and how much value there is in striving to make our organisation as diverse and inclusive a place as it can be.


Of course, we know that our endeavours must continue. There are areas we need to work on further so that the organisation can become truly representative of the people we serve. We are committed to making ongoing improvements in those areas


We all have work to do to achieve and maintain this standard. Mainstreaming outcomes, and the legal duties that underpin them, are an important part of that. Our mainstreaming outcomes for 2024-2028, aligned with our Corporate Plan for 2024-2027, will serve as a guide and goal for us over the next four years and will ensure that Revenue Scotland continues to work hard to ensure that we meet the needs of all the people we serve.

Elaine Lorimer, Chief Executive
28 March 2024

Designation of the Inverness and Cromarty Green Freeport Tax Sites

On 18 March 2024, a Statutory Instrument was laid to designate tax sites for the Green Freeport Relief in relation to the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport.

These regulations will come into effect on 8 April 2024. 

The Designation of Special Tax Sites (Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport) Regulations 2024 (legislation.gov.uk) can be viewed on legislation.gov.uk. 

The designated tax sites for the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport are:

Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) changes from 1 April 2024

Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) legislative changes 

From 1 April 2024, a new LBTT relief for local authority purchases will be introduced. Changes will also be made to the way in which the Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) is applied, for transactions with an effective date on or after 1 April 2024. 

The effective date in the majority of cases will be the date the transaction is completed. 
Please note: changes are not retrospective.

Quarterly SLfT Statistics

Commentary

£14.1 million in Scottish Landfill Tax (SLfT) was declared payable for the latest quarter, October to December 2023 (Q3, 2023/24). The total tonnage of standard taxable waste was 140,400 in the latest quarter.

Total SLfT declared due in Q3 of 2023/24 was the lowest of any quarter, and even lower than Q1 of 2020/21, which was affected by COVID-19 restrictions. Tonnes of standard taxable waste reported were the lowest for any quarter, and 26% lower than the previous low in last quarter. Total tonnes of lower rate waste were the lowest since Q4 2021/22, and 18% lower than last quarter.

26 operators provided returns for the latest quarter, covering 46 sites.

Note - to make the information in this publication more accessible to users, charts and additional commentary have been added, as well as some formatting changes (for example, to support the use of assistive technology such as screen reader software). If you have any comments regarding these changes or the overall publication, please contact us at: statistics@revenue.scot 

Revenue Scotland introduces Recite Me accessibility tools online

Revenue Scotland is proud to introduce Recite Me accessibility and language tools on our website. We believe that everyone deserves a barrier-free online experience. 

Our diversity and inclusion strategy aims to provide a seamless experience for people with disabilities, learning difficulties, visual impairments, and non-native English speakers. With the Recite Me assistive toolbar, we can help over 20% of the population who might otherwise face barriers on our website.   

Simon Cunningham reappointed to the Revenue Scotland board

Simon Cunningham has been a member of the Board of Revenue Scotland since January 2021, having previously served as a member of Revenue Scotland’s Audit & Risk Committee from 2019.  He is a Chartered Accountant and was for a partner with Scott-Moncrieff, Chartered Accountants, leading their outsourced internal audit and risk consulting services for many years working with Boards and Audit Committees for a wide range of organisations across the Scottish public sector, and several of Scotland leading listed companies and charities.  He was Chief Internal Auditor at AEGON UK and

Appendix C - Data Quality and Further Information

All data were extracted as at 31 May 2023 but, in keeping with Revenue Scotland’s revisions policy, some of the data relating to earlier years has not been updated. For LBTT and SLfT, only data for 2021/22 onwards has been updated (and for sub-Scotland geographies, only the most recent year was updated).

Reliefs

There are various data quality issues with reliefs information collected from LBTT returns in previous years, although these issues do not affect the total LBTT declared due. 

The most common data quality issue affecting total revenue foregone to reliefs is that, prior to the introduction of a new electronic tax system in July 2019, 4% of taxpayers claiming reliefs incorrectly entered the value of the relief claimed as the full consideration - e.g. the total price of the property – rather than the LBTT amount that would be due without reliefs. This means that simply summing the value of reliefs claimed on tax returns would overstate the value of LBTT revenue forgone to reliefs. The LBTT revenue forgone to reliefs needs to be estimated from other information provided by the taxpayer, and hence the results presented are referred to as estimates. Full details of the methods used to produce the estimates can be found on the LBTT data requests section5 of the Revenue Scotland website.

From 2015/16 to 2018/19, the relief amount was estimated in this way for 10% of returns claiming a relief. Recent improvements to the tax system have reduced the need to estimate the relief amount, and in 2020/21, the relief amount was estimated for 1% of returns.

It is also worth noting that the estimates are likely to underestimate ADS (and consequently LBTT) revenue forgone to reliefs to some extent. ADS is due on most purchases of a residential property by a non-natural person, such as a company. When a full relief is claimed reducing the LBTT liability to nil, in some cases the ADS has not been declared (rather than declared and reduced to nil by relief). Therefore, although the tax position is correct, it is likely that data on reliefs for residential transactions will underestimate ADS revenues forgone. There is a similar issue where a non-residential transaction contains a mixture of residential and commercial elements (‘mixed’ property transactions are treated as non-residential transactions for LBTT). Again, the overall tax position for the relevant transactions remains correct.

Notes on LBTT returns

The LBTT legislation prescribes that an LBTT return must be submitted and arrangements made for payment of the LBTT due to Revenue Scotland before the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland can proceed with registration of title. The LBTT return includes a range of information about the transaction, tax liabilities and reliefs claimed. Amendments and corrections can be made to LBTT returns up to one year following the filing date. This may lead to revisions to the LBTT data in this publication. The vast majority of LBTT returns are submitted online via the Revenue Scotland website by agents acting on behalf of taxpayers.

[5] The relevant file is dated 11 October 2018 and named ‘LBTT – reliefs.xlsx’.

Notes on SLfT returns

The SLfT data presented in this publication comes from SLfT returns and is based on the period the return relates to. A SLfT return must be submitted and arrangements made for payment of the SLfT due to Revenue Scotland by 44 days after the end of the quarter. The SLfT return includes a range of information about the tax liabilities and credits claimed, along with supplementary information on the type and amount of waste disposed of in the quarter. Amendments and corrections can be made to SLfT returns up to one year following the filing date. This may lead to revisions to the SLfT data in this publication. The vast majority of SLfT returns are submitted online via the Revenue Scotland portal.

Other Data Sources

Users should note that this publication is not a commentary on the volume of waste from all 

sources or volume of waste landfilled in Scotland. Nor is it a commentary on the volume or value of land and property transactions in Scotland. 

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency publishes comprehensive waste data for Scotland on its website.

Registers of Scotland publishes comprehensive property data for Scotland on its website.

Other UK Statistics 

Statistics for other countries of the UK are produced by different organisations. These are listed below. Note that different countries may have different tax rates which should be considered when comparing the statistics.

For Wales, The Welsh Revenue Authority produce statistics on the Land Transaction Tax and Landfill Disposal Tax in Wales, which are found on their website.

For England and Northern Ireland, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) produce the Stamp Duty Land Tax statistics and the Landfill Tax is found in their Environmental Taxes Bulletin.

Appendix B Comparison of Published Statistics with Revenue Scotland’s Annual Report and Financial Statements

The purpose of this appendix is to explain how Revenue Scotland’s monthly LBTT statistics, quarterly SLfT statistics, and annual statistics (this publication) relate to the revenue figures that appear in the Devolved Taxes Account in Revenue Scotland’s Annual Report and Financial Statements (referred to in this annex as the Annual Report). The figures in the statistics and Annual Report are produced on a different basis.

Appendix B (i) - comparison of LBTT statistics with published accounts

Whereas the figures in the Annual Report are, by their nature, fixed for a given year (at the point at which the accounts are closed), the published statistics are updated on a monthly basis with changes largely reflecting ADS reclaims (and some other amendments) which have been received after the original LBTT tax returns were submitted.

The Annual Report and published statistics are both based on the date the LBTT return is submitted but with some adjustments made to the Annual Report3 to accrue revenue for LBTT returns (and claims for repayment of ADS) received in April and May (after the end of the financial year) with an effective date (or sale date for the previous main residence) relating to the previous financial year or earlier. These April/May adjustments typically result in relatively small differences between the Annual Report and published statistics, although the difference was more pronounced in the first year of LBTT (2015/16) because there were no reverse accruals relating to the previous year.

Differences in reported figures are mainly due to the different treatments of claims for repayment of ADS in the Annual Report and published statistics. This annex focuses on differences arising due to the different treatments of claims for repayment of ADS and is intended to help the reader make meaningful comparisons between the two sources of financial information.

The published statistics allocate claims for repayment of ADS to the period in which the LBTT return (with ADS declared due) was originally submitted. The accounts published in the Annual Report typically allocate claims for repayment of ADS to the accounting year in which the claim for repayment was received. For example, a claim for repayment of ADS received in June 2019 relating to an LBTT return originally received in March 2019 would be allocated to March 2019 (2018/19) in the published statistics and to 2019/20 in the Annual Report. This repayment could not be allocated to 2018/19 in the accounts because the 2018/19 accounts were closed as at 31 May 2019.

Table 15: LBTT excluding ADS and gross ADS declared due and the value of ADS repayments claimed by year the LBTT return/claim for repayment was received and the year the claim relates to

  Year     £ millions3 Devolved Taxes figure for LBTT2
 

a) LBTT
excl.

ADS

 b) Gross ADS     Value of ADS repayments claimed Net LBTT
(a + b - c)
      Year claim relates to1
  2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 2022/23 c) All    
  2015/16 415.8                   415.8 424.9
  2016/17 389.7 104.5 13.3             13.3 480.9 483.6
  2017/18 461.5 124.3 12.3 17.1           29.4 556.4 557.3
  2018/19 457.1 130.4 1.6 13.0 18.6         33.1 554.4 554.2
  2019/20 478.5 166.4 0.0 1.6 15.2 23.9       40.7 604.2 597.4
  2020/21 398.8 156.6 0.0 0.1 2.0 19.3 23.1     44.5 510.9 517.4
  2021/22 666.5 192.6 0.0 0.0 0.7 4.5 20.1 26.9   52.2 806.9 807.2
  2022/23 679.9 210.6 0.0 0.0 0.1 1.1 2.2 17.2 27.9 48.4 842.1 847.8
Notes:  
1. For example, a claim for repayment of ADS received in 2017/18 relating to an LBTT return (with ADS declared due) originally received in 2016/17 would relate to 2016/17 (i.e. the year the LBTT return was received)

2. Revenue Scotland Annual Report and Financial Statements. See: 

https://www.revenue.scot/about-us/publications/corporate-documents

3. All figures are as at the end of the relevant financial year and have not been revised

Key figures in Table 15 that help illustrate the different treatment of claims for repayment of ADS are the £2.2 million and £17.2 million of claims for repayment of ADS received in 2022/23 relating to LBTT returns initially received in 2020/21 and 2021/22, respectively (and to a lesser extent, the £1.1 million relating to 2019/20). In the published statistics these claims do not result in any adjustment to the net ADS declared due in 2022/23. However, the net ADS reported in the statistics against 2020/21 and 2021/22 is revised (reduced) to reflect these claims as they relate to ADS originally declared on LBTT returns received in those financial years.

In the Annual Report, these repayments are reported as reductions in revenue in 2022/23 as they were received after the accounting periods for 2020/21 and 2021/22 were closed, and hence the accounts for 2020/21 and 2021/22 are not revised. Therefore, to compare the published statistics for LBTT relating to 2022/23 (as at the 31st March 2023) with the LBTT revenue reported in Revenue Scotland’s 2022/23 Annual Report (accounts), the ADS repayment claims received during 2022/23 relating to earlier years (£1.1 million for 2019/20, £2.2 million for 2020/21 and £17.2 million for 2021/22) should be deducted from the statistics4.
 

[3] The Annual Report and Financial Statements are produced to comply with the accounting principles and disclosure requirements of the Government Financial Reporting Manual.

[4] Note – the figures of £1.1 million, £2.2 million and £17.2 million for 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22 can be estimated from the statistics by differencing the net ADS statistics published for March 2023 with the net ADS statistics published for March 2022.

Table 15 shows that the Devolved Taxes figure for LBTT in Revenue Scotland’s accounts and the Net LBTT figure taken from the published statistics (adjusted for ADS reclaims in previous years, as discussed above) can broadly be reconciled. There are some other reasons for differences, but these are generally more minor and it is not practical to adjust the statistics for all possible differences.

The most significant of these is the impact of the accounting accruals process which attributes revenue in the first two months of the accounting year (April and May) to the previous financial year if the effective date of the relevant transaction was before 1 April. For every financial year there is revenue coming in from April and May of the following year (accruals) and revenue subtracted (reverse accruals) from April and May of the year in question which was included in the accounts of the previous year. 

The accruals and reverse accruals often roughly cancel out, but for 2015/16, 2019/20 and 2020/21 there were more noticeable difference which in turn resulted in more significant differences between Net LBTT and Devolved Taxes figure for LBTT in Table 15.

For 2015/16, no LBTT revenue where the tax returns were received in April or May 2015 were accrued into 2014/15 in the annual accounts (as LBTT was only introduced in April 2015), but 2015/16 included some revenue for returns received in April and May 2016 with effective dates before 1 April 2016.

For 2019-20, accruals from April and May 2020 (into 2019/20) were reduced as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic which significantly impacted LBTT revenue in late March and April/May 2020. This resulted in a lower figure in the accounts (£597.4 million) than in the net figure shown in Table 15 (£604.2 million), a difference of nearly £7 million.

The opposite effect is seen for 2020/21 where the accrual into the accounts (from April/May 2021 into 2020/21) outweighs the accrual from April/May 2020 into 2019/20. In this case the figure in the accounts for 2020/21 (£517.4 million) is around £7 million more than the net figure in Table 15 (£510.9 million). 

Appendix B (ii) – comparison of SLfT statistics with published accounts

            

Table 16: Comparison of SLfT declared due reported in Revenue Scotland statistics with SLfT revenue reported in the Revenue Scotland Annual Report and Financial Statements

Year £ millions
SLfT declared due
(in statistics1)		 SLfT revenue net of repayments, excluding penalties & interest and revenue losses
(in accounts2)
2015/16 149.3 147.0
2016/17 148.0 149.1
2017/18 146.6 148.0
2018/19 141.3 148.5
2019/20 118.6 119.0
2020/21 106.3 106.5
2021/22 121.7 125.2
2022/23 110.1 109.7
Notes:
1. Revenue Scotland SLfT Official Statistics.
See https://www.revenue.scot/about-us/publications/statistics/scottish-landfill-tax-statistics 
2. Revenue Scotland Annual Report and Financial Statements.
See https://www.revenue.scot/about-us/publications/corporate-documents 

Table 16 compares the SLfT declared due reported in Revenue Scotland Official Statistics with the SLfT revenue figures reported in Revenue Scotland’s Annual Report.

These statistics are reported in relation to the quarter in which the landfill disposal took place. For example, if a landfill operator submits an SLfT tax return in August 2018 relating to the quarter April - June 2018, the tax declared due is reported against that quarter (i.e. April - June 2018). Landfill operators have 12 months from the relevant date to amend their tax return and Revenue Scotland SLfT Statistics are revised up to 12 months after the quarter in question. If additional tax is declared, or identified through Revenue Scotland compliance activities, after this 12 month period, the statistics are not revised. This is to minimise the risk of disclosing Protected Taxpayer Information by updating tonnages and revenues by quarter, potentially showing changes relating only to single operators, or very small numbers of operators.

The Annual Report (accounts) reports revenue against the year in which the revenue was realised, with accrual adjustments in April and May. Unlike the statistics, any additional revenue (or reductions in revenue) realised during a financial year (but potentially relating to earlier years) will be reported as revenue in the accounts during that year and may lead to a difference between SLfT reported in the statistics and the accounts.

 

Appendix A - Date of submission versus effective date

Revenue Scotland’s monthly LBTT statistics and the data in this publication are based on the date the LBTT return is submitted to Revenue Scotland. Generally this is different from the effective date (generally the data that a land transaction is completed) as taxpayers have 30 days from the effective date to submit their LBTT return. It can take up to eight weeks from the effective date for the majority (99%) of LBTT returns to be submitted, whereas no such time lag exists for data produced by date of submission. Revenue Scotland is aware of interest in data by effective date but there are good reasons to publish statistics by submission date.

  • Publishing data based on the submission date rather than the effective date allows Revenue Scotland to publish monthly LBTT statistics in a timely manner.
  • The data will be subject to revision only as a result of changes to the LBTT returns submitted (e.g. a claim for repayment of ADS) and not as a result of the submission of LBTT returns relating to an earlier period (which would be the case for statistics produced by effective date).
  • Published statistics include actual values rather than estimates for the most recent months.
  • Trends observed in the published data will be broadly the same as those on an effective date basis, with the largest deviations occurring at the ends of the series and near policy changes.

It is worth noting that the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) typically requests data by effective date, which it uses to produce and evaluate forecasts of LBTT revenue. The data provided allows the SFC to more accurately examine the impact of significant events, e.g. policy changes. The data includes LBTT returns with an effective date up to and including the month two months prior to the date on which the data was extracted from the tax system. Revenue Scotland subsequently publishes the data provided to the SFC on the LBTT data requests section of its website.

Subscribe to