Responding to George Osborne’s plans to cut corporation tax to less than 15 per cent, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor has warned against turning the UK into a “tax haven”. While there is no universally accepted definition of a what a “tax haven” is, a number of jurisdictions are invariably... Read more...
Many doubts have been raised over High-Speed 2 but it may even need to be renamed Medium-Fast 1. The Times reports advice that the trains should be slowed by 65 mph in order to save money on this “crazy” project. The former Chief Scientific adviser to the Department for Transport,... Read more...
Oldham will be the latest Manchester council to change black bin collections to every 3 weeks, instead of every fortnight, in a bid to save £1.5 million a year. In other parts of Manchester the increase in fly-tipping and complaints of vermin and flies have already become apparent as consequences of... Read more...
The The TaxPayers' Alliance will be bringing their campaign to Woking on Thursday 21st July. At 13:00 we'll be leafleting in Jubilee Square in the centre of Woking so if you're around please come and grab some leaflets or come to say hello and find out what we've been up... Read more...
Everyone has been shocked by the horrific killing yesterday of Jo Cox, the MP for Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire. I offer my deepest condolences to her family. She was a wife and a mother to two young children, and few of us can begin to imagine the pain... Read more...
Our Chief Executive Jonathan Isaby has a piece in The Times today, not on the BHS pension scheme, but on public sector pensions - specifically within the NHS. As Jonathan points out, public sector pensions are broadly worth five times as much as their private counterparts. Considering how good a... Read more...
“Callers to a [HMRC’s] tax helpline were kept on hold so long, [hold music] became the UK’s second most streamed piece of music in 2015-16”, the Sun’s headline reported this morning. It emerged yesterday that UK taxpayers spent over 4 million hours on the phone waiting for an answer. The... Read more...
On the same day as the Westminster Hall debate on the 0.7% Foreign Aid target The Telegraph reports that a £156.4 million grant by the Department For International Development (DFID) has led to acts of terrorism by Palestinian civil servants becoming 'more likely'. The Overseas Development Institute have released a... Read more...
The government usually acts or passes a new law because it has a certain outcome in mind. It might be ensuring that our roads are maintained or that our children get a good education. However, when it comes to our foreign aid programme, it seems to be all about the... Read more...
At Prime Ministers’ Questions yesterday, the man himself spoke about something that doesn’t actually exist. Responding to a question from Mark Spencer, David Cameron suggested that the Robin Hood railway line would benefit from 'government money'. As he should know, every penny that the government spends comes from taxpayers current or... Read more...
On Monday the TPA published research on quangos and particularly who sits on their boards. These quangos can have vast budgets so it is vital that there is greater transparency over who controls so much taxpayers’ money. What we found raised some eyebrows and the research attracted a fair bit... Read more...
As we have previously made clear, the TaxPayers’ Alliance is not campaigning for either side in the impending EU referendum. But over the years the TPA has scrutinised a number of aspects of spending at a European Union level and as people seek facts on which to base their decision... Read more...
England is simply not windy enough for more turbines. That’s according to RenewableUK chief executive Hugh McNeal, who’s quoted in the Daily Mail today as saying that any further investment into English-based wind turbines wouldn’t be economically sensible.Regular readers of the TaxPayers’ Alliance blog will remember that this isn’t the... Read more...
Happy Tax Freedom Day! Today is the first day of the year that you start earning money for yourself! It has taken 154 days of 2016 for UK residents to earn enough money to solely pay all of their taxes. That is four days later than Tax Freedom Day in... Read more...
The House of Lords plays a crucial role in scrutinising the Government and its legislation – not least because so many bills leave the House of Commons not properly studied after being subject to strict timetabling. But unfortunately its members sometimes stand accused of taxpayer-funded extravagance. Last weekend’s Sunday Times reported the... Read more...
It has been revealed today that the EU paid a grand total of £675 million to criminals who made fraudulent aid claims in 2015. The majority of these claims coming from Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, some of the EU’s poorest states. The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) announced that in 2015 1,442 allegations of fraud were... Read more...
New ONS statistics revealed today who paid how much tax in 2014-15. It showed that: The ten per cent of households with the lowest income paid the equivalent of 46.8 per cent of their salary to the taxman. In only London, the South East and East of England did the... Read more...
New figures released by the Office for National Statistics today show public sector net borrowing is £2 billion higher than previously estimated - in the last financial year £76 billion was added to the national debt. Jonathan Isaby, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Missing targets has become the... Read more...
On Friday the TaxPayers' Alliance office and supporters in the South East took the train to Hastings in order to raise awareness of our campaign against wasteful spending. After meeting up at Hastings Station activists leafleted and spoke to the Hastings Observer outside of the new town hall before moving... Read more...
Having thought that there was finally to be some transparency over BBC salaries, it turns out that we are likely to be denied once again. The Government’s White Paper on the BBC’s future said that salaries over £450,000 would have to be revealed, but it now appears that there is... Read more...
The National Audit Office (NAO) warns that Whitehall’s efforts to streamline their services and save taxpayers’ money are not working. £90 million of savings have been made to date by outsourcing and transforming back office functions but the total cost of investment of the programme has been £94 million. Thus... Read more...
It's summer and the days are growing longer; it's the perfect time for an informal TPA catch-up in Aylesbury. If you're available to spend an hour or two debating the big political issues of the day come and join other TPA supporters for a pint next month: Date: Thursday 16th... Read more...
When the Bank of England's Chief Economist admits that he cannot make "the remotest sense" of most pension deals, we know there's a problem. Andrew Haldane was quoting a report which found six in 10 people did not feel they knew enough about pensions to confidently decide how to save... Read more...
The The TaxPayers' Alliance will be bringing their campaign to Hastings on Friday 20th May. At 12:30pm we'll be leafleting outside Hastings Town Hall, Queens Road, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 1QR.In the afternoon we're moving to the Hastings Friday Market at Stade Open Space, Rock-A-Nore Rd, Hastings TN34 at 2:30pm.Do... Read more...