The crown estates.

[piratelassie]

The Smith Commission recomended control of the Crown Estates should be devolved to Scotland. The earnings from the land and sea bed are vast. Lets wait for the outcome, I have my doubts if it will favour Scotland. The crown Estate is another massive home grown asset.

[Bill Fernie]

The difficulty for anyone to get their head round this topic is that there are many conflicting arguments and can the Crown Estate income be viewed in isolation with no regard to how Scotland's government services are funded overall.

With many taxes from income tax. corporation tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, and others going into the melting pot and coming out via the Barnett formula there is much more involved than merely ceding the control of the Crown Estates to the Scottish Parliament. The Smith commission report makes a number of recommendations of which the Crown Estates control by the Scottish Government is only one.

It may well be better for more local control of many of our taxes and assets but only time will tell if everyone will be better off and the changes will be complex and take some time to reach agreements as to who gets what and what parts of the various government departments will go to which country.

To get an ideas of what is involved I suggest the following web sites -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_formula
https://www.smith-commission.scot/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Commission
http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/news-and-media/news/2014/the-smith-commission-crown-estate-statement/

(http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/news-and-media/news/2014/the-smith-commission-crown-estate-statement/)A major factor will also be what is the amount of the National Debt that Scotland will have to agree to take on. Whether we like it or not Scotland will take on the repayments of our share whatever that might be and that will require to be paid from income to the Scottish Government.
http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/
http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/uk-economy/uk-national-debt/

During the referendum campaign many articles covered the threats on both sides to either walk away from the debt on one side to threats on the other side of higher interest rates charged to Scotland by investors or for borrowing by government in Scotland.

The topics are also cover in many political and campaign web sites - just google the topics.