Ms Sturgeon today confirmed that Scotland will move to level 0 of her government’s five-tier system of coronavirus pandemic restrictions. This means the country will move in step with England but in a “modified” way, continuing with certain restrictions around physical distancing and numbers meeting both indoors and outdoors. One aspect that will differ will be the wearing of masks, which the Scottish First Minister said will remain mandatory “for some time to come”.

She plans to remove the remaining legal restrictions by August.

As Ms Sturgeon works on slowly opening Scotland up, her Scottish National Party (SNP) colleagues are also quietly laying the road to a second referendum on independence.

On securing Holyrood just one seat shy of a majority in May’s devolved election, Ms Sturgeon argued that she clearly had the support of the Scottish people to take the country out of the UK.

However, many issues remain around the arrangements of what a victory for the ‘Yes’ camp might mean.

One is on taxation, and how Scotland’s future relationship with the rest of the UK and world regarding this would work.

Currently, as part of the Union, it operates in existing “double taxation agreements” with many countries that ensure people do not pay tax twice on the same income.

If a double taxation agreement is in place, it may state which country has the right to collect tax on different types of income: dual residence is one example.

Yet, a Government white paper published ahead of the 2014 independence ballot suggested that Scotland could run into a logistical nightmare in securing double tax treaties.

Compiled by the Economic Affairs Committee, the paper’s intention was not to make a pro or anti-independence argument, but to weigh up the economic implications for the wider UK – notably England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Frank Haskew of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales explained the extent to which any post-independence Scottish government would have to go, and said: “Scotland will clearly need to have a double tax agreement with the rest of the UK.

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“That is the foundation of international trade and commerce, tax and resolving disputes, difficulties, and indeed allocating taxing rights.

“As part of any independent settlement, a comprehensive double-tax treaty will need to be negotiated … My guess is that that would be based fairly solidly on the OECD model treaty … also … we would need to have a double contributions agreement for things such as national insurance, and we would probably need an agreement for inheritance tax as well.

“So we would need a fairly comprehensive set of agreements covering a wide range of taxes.”

According to Rupert Soams, CEO of Serco group, Scotland would also “have to start negotiating new treaties with other jurisdictions … it will be a long process, I would have thought, for Scotland to put together a set of international tax treaties”.

He said he feared extra costs for Scottish businesses would result, and said: “One of the big impacts and complications for us as a global business will be around double taxation agreements.

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“The people who will have a ball with independence are all the professional advisers—all the accountants and lawyers.”

Ultimately, an independent Scotland would need to have a double taxation agreement with the rest of the UK and to negotiate tax treaties and similar agreements with a range of countries.

The issue of taxation does not stop there.

Earlier this year, the TaxPayers’ Alliance found that an independent Scotland would need to raise the basic rate of income tax to 46 pence in the pound to pay for its current level of spending.

Scotland’s spending per person is around 20 percent above the UK’s average, at £11,247.

The high percentage is, in part, thanks to the Barnett formula which distributes tax money to the devolved nations.

Without this the TaxPayers’ Alliance noted Scotland could “not be supported without huge tax rises, or a significant reduction in public spending”.

It continued: “Holyrood would need to increase taxes by at least 10 percent of GDP to balance the books and maintain this level of spending, the same as raising VAT to 49 percent.

“Alternatively, to bring spending down, cuts could fall on areas where provision is currently more generous than in England, such as free university tuition.”

The research also found that due to the high levels of spending, the Scottish deficit is 14 times higher than the European average, at 8.6 percent of GDP.

Any future independence settlement could see the country liable to take a share of the UK’s existing debt, “leading to liabilities of around £300billion, or twice the size of Scotland’s GDP”.