The Scottish Greens published it’s Manifesto for the Scottish Parliament election with a plan to overhaul the tax system in Scotland.

The tax changes it wants include an annual 1% wealth tax on millionaires and a one of windfall tax on big firms it says has made huge profits during the covid pandemic.

It says new measures are needed to raise the money required to deliver a fairer, greener economy.

The wealth tax would be levied on assets above the £1m threshold which would include property, land, pensions and any other assets.

Scottish Greens Co-convenor, Patrick Harvie, said the taxes were “crucial, both to fund our aspirations for stronger and better public services, and to build a more equal Scotland”.

“Taxing wealth properly is now more urgent than ever before.”

The manifesto also included replacing Air Passenger Duty with a frequent flyers tax.

Glasgow Times:

It would see every passenger pay no charges on their first return flight of the year but the tax would rise with every flight taken after that.

The party proposes 5500 new permanent teachers to reduce class sizes anda reduction of class time for teachers to allow more lesson planning.

It would delay children starting school until age seven and focus on a play based education for the first two years.

It also wants an independent Scotland in the European Union with a referendum within the next five years.

Other opposition parties reacted tot he manifesto, the first of the main parties to be launched.

Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour deputy leader said, “Scottish Labour is ready to work with the Scottish Greens on policies that tackle the climate emergency and seek to reduce inequality.

“It’s a shame their commitment to these national missions were not a priority when passing SNP budgets that ignored social care workers and cut funding for local government.”

Douglas Ross, conservative leader, said: “Hard-working families would be crippled by eye-watering tax rises which rather than increasing public revenue would choke the economy, crush aspiration and devastate our public services.

“These hard-left, pie in the sky policies are irresponsible, unrealistic and unsustainable.

Alistair Carmichael, Scottish Liberal Democrat campaign chair, said: “People who are concerned about the climate emergency will be shocked to see that the Scottish Green party’s priority is independence.

“When we should be focused on switching one million homes to climate friendly heating, securing green jobs and boosting renewable energy, the different factions of the nationalist movement want to spend their time bickering over a timeline for another referendum.”