If you are Scottish, there was some bad news this week. It wasn’t just the weather or another droning policy speech from Nicola Sturgeon. It was this. Your taxes just went up. From the start of this tax year, Scotland imposed a new higher rate of 46pc on its highest-earning citizens. For the first time, the amount of your monthly pay packet taken by government will vary across the different countries of the United Kingdom.

It is not just Scotland, however. If you are Welsh, and buying and selling a property, you will also face a new form of property tax. Likewise, in Northern Ireland you may soon have a different rate of corporation tax.

Piece by piece, tax competition is arriving between the...