In July last year, we revealed the substantial rise in council staff drawing pensions compared to those paying in. We also revealed in April last year the enormous black hole in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) - a gaping pensions deficit of £54 billion for which taxpayers are ultimately... Read more...
Small business owners believe it’s crucial to get the right mix of individuals with the skills needed to develop and expand a business. With a lot of small businesses starting to see some shoots of recovery, they find themselves in the fortunate position of being able to recruit. They syphon... Read more...
If you are a business in Nottingham, and provide 11 or more car parking spaces for your employees, your existing Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) licence will expire on 31 March. This means you are legally required to obtain a new licence covering the period 1 April 2013 - 31 March... Read more...
This afternoon Parliament will likely make emergency changes to welfare legislation following the fallout from the Cait Reilly Poundland case. Critics of the policy pursued by the Government, such as Shiv Malik in this particularly misleading Guardian article, argue that the DWP is somehow seeking to strike down the Court of Appeal judgement to deny claimants compensation that... Read more...
Cornwall Council was caught hopping by the surprise freeze in Council Tax forced on them by opposition councillors, says Cornish MP George Eustice. The Conservative run council had planned to raise its Council Tax by 1.97% just below the threshold needed to trigger a local referendum. But the opposition Lib... Read more...
A new book by the Adam Smith Institute’s Research Fellow JP Floru assembles a small mountain of anecdotes, statistics and historical analysis to make a powerful case. Tougher regulation, high government spending and the high taxes that are required to pay for it all destroy growth and leave end up... Read more...
The TaxPayers’ Alliance was joined by local businesspeople in Southend on Thursday to campaign for a freeze in Business Rates this week’s budget. Read more...
Local business owners joined us in Grantham last Friday to raise awareness of our Freeze Business Rates campaign. As we have previously mentioned, business rates went up by 4.6 per cent in 2011 and 5.6 per cent in 2012, and they are set to rise by a further 2.6 per... Read more...
The Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) teamed up with local business owners in Loughborough today to call for a freeze in business rates. Read more...
As reported in the Telegraph and the South Yorkshire Times today the failed South Yorkshire Digital Regional scheme is to be offloaded to the private sector at a cost of £1.3 million to the taxpayer. Doncaster Council took the decision yesterday to transfer ownership of the failed network from four... Read more...
Supporters from throughout Cardiff and South Wales joined our Mash Beer Tax event in the Welsh Capital on Tuesday night. The gathering included students from Cardiff University who all raised beer mats at the appropriately named Queens Vaults, Cardiff City Centre. The students, like those at the Exeter, Bristol and... Read more...
We recently commissioned a YouGov poll to survey people’s fiscal knowledge of our tax system and government spending. The poll coincides with the launch of our new Fiscal Factbook. How good is your fiscal knowledge? Take the test and see how well you do. Read more...
Local shopkeepers joined the TaxPayers' Alliance in Goring-on-Thames yesterday to protest against the latest increase in business rates. Business rates went up by 4.6 per cent in 2011 and 5.6 per cent in 2012, and they are set to rise by a further 2.6 per cent in April. Imposing a... Read more...
Many local authorities are using the excuse of cuts in central government grants to increase Council Tax. But some are actually getting on with delivering good services without reaching into taxpayers' pockets for even more cash. Read more...
When is a tax not a tax? When it’s the “Bedroom Tax”, which is in fact a change to housing benefit and not a tax. Campaigners, charities and Ed Miliband have thrown this term around to describe the Government’s recent proposals to reclaim some of the Housing Benefit given to those... Read more...
Reacting to David Cameron's speech on the economy, Matthew Sinclair, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA), said: Read more...
The Chairman of Durham County Council receives a councillor's basic allowance of £13,300, plus a special responsibility allowance (SRA) of £6,650. The vice-chairman receives the same basic allowance, plus a SRA of £3,325. What was not widely known though was that in additional to those allowances, a special clothing allowance... Read more...
There are times when looking through job adverts you have more questions than answers. For example, Hackney Borough Council is looking for a new Senior Sustainability and Climate Change Officer. The salary on offer is £40,506 - £43,152. The job adverts says the successful applicant "will be a supervisor within... Read more...
Supporters joined our Mash Beer Tax campaign in Exeter last night. Students from the University of Exeter raised pints and our beer mats at the Mill on the Exe pub. With students paying hefty fees, there is little patience with the government automatically hiking taxes on one of their great... Read more...
Eight years after George Osborne called for the Conservative party to “make a bold case for lower and simpler taxes” after seeing Estonia’s single-rate proportionate tax system in action, David Cameron yesterday praised the “obvious attractions” of flatter taxes after seeing Latvia’s system. When asked whether a Conservative government would... Read more...
Supporters of our Mash Beer Tax campaign gathered in Bristol and Bath last night. In Bristol, students joined us for a pint and raised our beermats at The White Bear in Clifton to show their support for a vital aspect of their university social life! Read more...
In our latest report on local authority middle management pay, published last Wednesday, we revealed 270 employees of Hull City Council were paid in excess of £50,000 a year. I was invited to debate the issue on BBC Radio Humberside with the leader of the council, Steve Brady. Read more...
At a time when councils across the country are cutting back on frontline services, it seems inappropriate to be splashing out taxpayers’ money on non-essential expenditure. But this doesn’t seem to have stopped Herefordshire City Council (HCC) from pursuing a costly re-branding exercise on for its tourist agency. A Freedom... Read more...
Many people enjoy hitting their local high street and spending their hard-earned cash in their favourite stores. However, rising business rates are posing an increasingly serious threat to more and more local shops. Read more...