Got enough now Gordon?

It seems appropriate to be filling in a tax return this morning given that yesterday was Tax Freedom Day. As the Adam Smith Institute points out, we're not really free until 11th June if we take government borrowing into account, as we must. Incidentally, I wonder what on earth the US government's fiscal deficit is doing to its real TFD.

In today's Scotsman, George Kerevan writes about Tax Freedom Day and calls for more transparency in tax matters.

In fact, because we don’t have transparency regarding the value of our taxes, the political discussion on tax levels has been virtually stagnant for 20 years. For Lib Dems, SNP, SSP, Labour, Greens and Scottish Tories, the mantra is "up, up, up". For English Tories, it is "cut, cut, cut". The tax debate has to be more sophisticated.

I'm not so sure that the English Tories are shouting for tax cuts, but it's certainly true that their Scottish colleagues aren't. What are they afraid of? There's a gap in the Scottish political marketplace for a low-tax, small-government party that also respects civil liberties.

Of course, I believe that Scotland's Tax Freedom Day should be no later than 25th January when it can be appropriately celebrated at a Burns Supper:

"Freedom and Whisky gang thegither"

After a few years we can move the great day back to 1st January when the taxman will be too inebriated to collect anything at all.