CREATE TABLE dbo.logging_table(log_id INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY, 
                               log_message VARCHAR(255))

CREATE TABLE dbo.person(person_id INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY, 
                        person_name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL)
GO;

CREATE TRIGGER dbo.InsertToADifferentTable ON dbo.person  
AFTER INSERT  
AS
    INSERT INTO dbo.logging_table(log_message)
    VALUES('Someone added something to the person table')
GO;

INSERT INTO dbo.person(person_name)
VALUES('John Doe')  

SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY();

This will return the most recently added identity value produced on the same connection, within the current scope. In this case, 1, for the first row in the dbo.person table.

CREATE TABLE dbo.logging_table(log_id INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY, 
                               log_message VARCHAR(255))

CREATE TABLE dbo.person(person_id INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY, 
                        person_name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL)
GO;

CREATE TRIGGER dbo.InsertToADifferentTable ON dbo.person  
AFTER INSERT  
AS
    INSERT INTO dbo.logging_table(log_message)
    VALUES('Someone added something to the person table')
GO;

INSERT INTO dbo.person(person_name)
VALUES('John Doe')    

SELECT @@IDENTITY;

This will return the most recently-added identity on the same connection, regardless of scope. In this case, whatever the current value of the identity column on logging_table is, assuming no other activity is occurring on the instance of SQL Server and no other triggers fire from this insert.

SELECT IDENT_CURRENT('dbo.person');

This will select the most recently-added identity value on the selected table, regardless of connection or scope.

SELECT MAX(Id) FROM Employees -- Display the value of Id in the last row in Employees table.
GO
INSERT INTO Employees (FName, LName, PhoneNumber) -- Insert a new row 
VALUES ('John', 'Smith', '25558696525') 
GO  
SELECT @@IDENTITY 
GO  
SELECT MAX(Id) FROM Employees -- Display the value of Id of the newly inserted row.  
GO

The last two SELECT statements values are the same.