KEZIA Dugdale became the first Holyrood leader to publish her tax return yesterday, as she and Jeremy Corbyn tried to draw Nicola Sturgeon into the growing row over the Panama Papers and the rich not paying their fair share.

At a joint event in Edinburgh, the Scottish and UK Labour leaders tried to connect the First Minister’s refusal to levy a 50p top rate of income tax on high earners in case they left Scotland with the wider problem of the wealthy getting special treatment when it comes to paying tax. Dugdale’s 2014-15 return showed she received £52,223 from her MSP’s salary, plus £5,242 from newspaper columns, which she donated to charity, resulting in a tax bill of £11,250.

Tory leader Ruth Davidson also issued her return last night, showing she paid £10,513.

Sturgeon and the other party leaders are due to publish their returns within days. The First Minister and the other party leaders are expected to publish their tax returns within days.

With the fallout from the leaked Panama Papers dominating the political debate, and Labour keen to attack the SNP over tax, Corbyn accused Sturgeon of passing on Tory misery instead of raising more revenue from the rich.

He told about 400 people at Portobello Town Hall: “A 50p tax rate for the very highest earners is a good thing. It gives opportunity to the next generation. Why can’t other parties accept that?

“What the leaked papers … exposed is a systematic network of financiers, lawyers and the super-rich and the super-corrupt who conspire in secret to dodge the taxes the rest of us pay. It’s not clever, it’s wrong and frankly it’s immoral. It’s exposed how for too long those in positions of power have accepted the dogma of low tax.

“And I ask Nicola Sturgeon, I ask the SNP, to think about this. If you always go in a race to the bottom on issues of taxation, if you accept that people can flee with their wealth to somewhere else, what happens as a result? You end up with underfunded public services. You end up with people in need not getting the help they deserve in any decent democratic society. So much for the anti-austerity we were told about in the past.”

Dudgale said people were livid at the rich playing by different rules, especially after the Panama Papers: “They’re getting away with it and it has to stop. Not since the MPs’ expenses scandal has there been such palpable anger, a sense of unfairness at the heart of our society.

“Politicians need to not only play by the rules, they need to be seen to be playing by the rules. So I am publishing my tax return for last year. I have nothing to hide. And I challenge my fellow Scottish party leaders to do the same.”

She said Labour would add a penny to income tax rates this year to raise an extra £500 million and bring back the 50p top rate for those earning more than £150,000.

“Nicola Sturgeon has said she won’t bring in a 50p top rate, but is in favour of it in principle. I say to her – it’s easy to be a socialist in principle. The problem is, she isn’t in practice.

“My opponents say ... the richest will try to avoid paying it. I say that paying tax isn’t optional for you or me, so it shouldn’t be optional for the richest either. It isn’t the job of Government to make excuses for why the rich won’t pay their taxes; it is the job of Government to make sure the rich do pay their taxes.”

She pledged Labour would only award public contracts to companies paying their full tax liabilities.

In a Q&A afterwards, Corbyn admitted Labour “should have done more on tax avoidance” when last in Government. “I fully accept and I fully understand that,” he said. But, he added, there had also been “a change in the Labour party” and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell would clamp down on tax evasion and loopholes.

Sturgeon said Labour were “confused and hypocritical” on tax, advocating a hike for low-paid workers in Scotland, while Corbyn backed Tory tax cuts for the better-off south of the Border.

She said: “Making low earners in Scotland pay the price of Tory austerity whilst giving high earners in England a tax cut is simply falling into a Tory trap. This is either an example of complete confusion from Jeremy Corbyn – or of rank hypocrisy.”

Sturgeon urged Corbyn to “show some proper leadership” and get Labour to back his plan to scrap Trident, saving £167 billion.

Elsewhere on the campaign, Ruth Davidson said only the Tories replacing Labour as the official opposition would guarantee a “Scottish Parliament with teeth” and pledged a shake-up of Holyrood’s committees that have become tame and passive under the SNP majority.

The Scottish Greens called for a new watchdog “with powers to act on sexist and demeaning representation of women and girls” in the media.