Two new laws have been passed this week as a direct result of TPA campaigning which will save taxpayers' money — these are examples of how supporting our work, which has pushed for change, can lead to huge results. Trade Union Act Over the last 12 years, the TaxPayers’ Alliance has... Read more...
There was a great deal of media speculation over the weekend about the BBC’s competitive scheduling. While it now seems to be off the cards, the rumour was that prime BBC shows may be moved in order to avoid clashes with rival shows on other channels. Given the privileged position... Read more...
The remote island of St Helena was due to open its much needed new airport next month, but the project - which has come at a £250m cost to British taxpayers - has now been delayed indefinitely. While tests were carried out before the construction of the airport there are... Read more...
For all the chaos of the tax system over recent decades, one thing has remained remarkably consistent. As the graph below shows, the amount of tax raised as a percentage of GDP has remained remarkably stable at around 35 per cent despite huge changes to the thresholds and rates of... Read more...
Government ministers can often be heard citing statistics about the amount of tax being paid by the top 1 per cent of earners in the country. This is hardly surprising given the clamour for the richest to pay their “fair share” – a clamour which has grown louder because... Read more...
The Public Accounts Committee has released a widely covered report that makes several criticisms of the handling of humanitarian aid. Specifically it says that while the department is doing a good job overall: “The Department does not have a good understanding of the impact on its wider business when it moves staff... Read more...
Just a week after the government spent £6m on leaflets and £3m on a website telling the public why they would be better off voting to remain in the EU, the Treasury is set to publish a 200 page report setting out the costs and benefits of EU membership. The... Read more...
Welcome to our BBC Question Time liveblog! We'll be here and on Twitter during the show. Read more...
The news that Stoke Gifford Parish Council has decided to charge Parkrun to use a local park for hold its 5km running events there is downright absurd. Apparently, it would damage the path that the runners use… But this forgets that the local community is already hands the council money - £307,946 in... Read more...
Our Chief Executive, Jonathan Isaby, has a letter published in The Times this morning. You can find it reproduced in full below. Sir, It may now be deemed an old-fashioned view, but the private details of individuals’ annual income and related tax affairs really ought to remain just that: private... Read more...
Yesterday, Julia Mulligan, the Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire Police, tweeted criticising a report from last year which looked at the costs of Police and Crime Commissioners compared to the preceding Police Authorities. In addition, she stated that she had “met [the] researcher who did it and he... Read more...
We at the TaxPayers’ Alliance have long been critics of the Government’s green subsidies. Our position has always been the same: green energy subsidies push up the cost of already stretched families’ domestic energy bills. The cost of inefficient taxpayer-subsidised green programmes always ends up, one way or another, being... Read more...
Junior doctors have commenced their fourth strike over the new contract. The minutiae of this contract have been discussed and are not worth revisiting in detail here, but the latest argument from the British Medical Association – that the contract discriminates against female doctors- is worth examining. The argument is... Read more...
The leak of millions of documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has reignited a debate over “tax havens”. Much of the coverage thus far has centred on the financial affairs of disreputable world leaders who would have great difficulty explaining why such vast assets are being held in... Read more...
They say that only two things are certain: death and taxes, and perhaps the most painful moment for a family is when the two are sadly combined. The death tax runs contrary to the natural human desire to provide a better life for the next generation and is a blatant... Read more...
There are a number of groups and organisations in Wales opposed to the introduction of tax devolution. True Wales has actively campaigned against the entire idea of devolution of power from Whitehall to Cardiff Bay and has gained popular support for their work. Many organisations in their position offer valid... Read more...
With April comes another hike in council tax. The Telegraph reports that bills are set to rise an average of 3.6% outside London - that’s an extra £58 for a Band D property and very close to the maximum 3.9% allowed increase. Reductions in central government funding means that this... Read more...
With so much of government spending ring-fenced there are, inevitably, fewer ways to make the necessary savings in order to balance the nation’s books. One particular area of the budget that the TaxPayers’ Alliance has repeatedly called to come under scrutiny is the spending of 0.7 per cent of gross national... Read more...
Sugary soft drinks will be taxed in an almost certainly futile bid to improve the nation’s health, that much we know. But what other effects will the measure have? The first year that the levy comes into effect the treasury expects to raise about £520 million. Clearly there is not... Read more...
Anyone with even the faintest interest in current affairs could not have failed to notice the surprise resignation of Iain Duncan Smith on Friday evening. In his letter to the Prime Minister, IDS explained that he struggled to accept cuts to disability benefit at the same time that better-off pensioners... Read more...
As a Unionist I am regularly asked why I support the idea of the Welsh Government having Tax Raising powers. To some it could appear to be a step towards the eventual breakup of the United Kingdom by a nationalist undercurrent, an attempt to get the wheels in motion for... Read more...
The story of Welsh devolution has been a rocky one and this year is possible one of the most important years for Welsh Taxpayers and the electorate as a whole. We, like other devolved nations have our regional governmental elections on a number of weeks before the EU referendum. With... Read more...
The overwhelmingly dominant challenge that faced the coalition government was getting spending under control. A weak, sluggish economy could not withstand higher tax and fears that jittery markets would lose confidence in the UK treasury's ability to stay on top of its debt were real. So reversing the extraordinary spending... Read more...
An interesting story grabbed our attention this morning, namely that MEPs have been spending millions of taxpayer pounds on “study trips” to Brussels and Strasbourg for their party activists. These trips, which are eligible for generous EU subsidies, feature in a rather harrowing recent review of the European Parliament’s £1.3... Read more...