City AM has published a superb chart on whether or not you have to pay VAT on your lunch under the recent u-turn on the rules.The City AM chart, by Lizzie Fournier, shows just how ridiculously complex the rules on VAT are. But while VAT rules are unfair and overly... Read more...
I wrote on Monday about the Chief Fire Officers' Association (CFOA). This is a group that represents the top brass in the fire service, and in the last three years received over £1.7 million of taxpayer funding. Read more...
Happy Tax Freedom Day! UK taxpayers have finally stopped working for the taxman and started working for themselves. But as it’s almost June, perhaps we shouldn’t be jumping for joy.The Adam Smith Institute calculates Tax Freedom Day every year. For 149 days of 2012, every penny earned by the average... Read more...
The Pasty Tax is no more! Last night the Government announced a u-turn that means we will no longer see the prospect of bureaucrats, armed with thermometers, visiting bakeries across the country checking on the temperatures of savoury products. Instead, as long the products are allowed to cool down naturally,... Read more...
More than half of taxpayers (57 per cent) do not know how much Income Tax and National Insurance they pay, according to a poll commissioned by the Treasury. It accompanies the launch of HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) new tax smartphone app which is part of a drive to increase... Read more...
Writing as part of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority's Month of Ideas, TPA Chief Executive Matthew Elliott explores MPs' pay and perks. In addressing the question of how much MPs should be paid, what we have to keep in mind right now is that we remain in the midst of... Read more...
Last November I wrote about the Chief Fire Officers' Association (CFOA). The name suggests this is an organisation paid for by those at the top of the fire service. As I pointed out, this is far from the truth. It is taxpayers that prop-up the CFOA as it gets subscriptions from... Read more...
Small is best. That’s the finding from an economic research paper published today by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) which looks at the economic performance of advanced economies with big governments and compares it to the performance of those with small governments. Their conclusions might be nothing new, but... Read more...
Ealing Council is advertising for a new Media Officer paying £144.00 - £148.34 per hour. At least that's what the advert says. Having checked with the council, I can confirm the figures quoted are the daily rate, and not the hourly rate. The council told me they have informed the... Read more...
Commentators are continuing to respond to the 2020 Tax Commission and one of the questions raised is whether the single rate of Income Tax we have proposed is really fair. There would be a big cut in the real Basic Rate, so low and middle income earners would be left... Read more...
It's time to be bold, argues John O'Connell: tear up our tax system and start again. George Osborne called our tax system a "spaghetti bowl" in 2010. He had a point. We have one of the world’s longest tax codes at over 11,500 pages, and this has real consequences for... Read more...
Very successful Action Day in Cardiff on Saturday May 19th. TPA supporters gathered in Queen Street opposite Cardiff Castle and helped voice the concerns of local shopkeepers by raising a petition against the 5p plastic bag tax introduced by the Welsh Assembly six months ago. Lee Canning, Welsh grassroots co-ordinator... Read more...
Some of the criticisms of the 2020 Tax Commission have argued that we are wrong to claim that lower taxes and spending are associated with higher growth. In particular, Nick Pearce - Director of the IPPR - argues that "the empirical evidence doesn’t support" that view. Unfortunately he hasn't seen... Read more...
What is the real Basic Rate? It isn't 20 per cent. That is just Income Tax. You also pay Employees' National Insurance of 12 per cent and Employers' National Insurance of 13.8 per cent, taken out before the money even reaches your payslip. Add those taxes together and the real... Read more...
Click here for the full reportClick here for the report summaryClick here for the full press release Read more...
We can today reveal that over half a century there has been no significant reduction in the costs of raising each pound of tax in Britain since 1958. This is after decades of new technology and improvement in productivity in the wider economy.Click here to read the full report HMRC has failed... Read more...
Both the tax rates and the number of different taxes need to be cut, writes Matthew Sinclair.From "Red" Ken Livingstone, the Labour Party candidate for mayor of London, to Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States, politicians have been getting in trouble over their taxes.... Read more...
MPs from Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire have been doing a brilliant job opposing the proposed introduction of VAT on static caravans. As I have previously mentioned, over 90 per cent of static caravans are manufactured in Hull and East Yorkshire, and slapping 20 per cent on the... Read more...
We are used to senior public sector workers departing their post with more than generous payouts. There are some who leave one council with a large redundancy cheque, only to start work for another council or quanqo shortly afterwards. Mark Hammond is a prime example. He was made redundant from... Read more...
The Prime Minister David Cameron talks about fiscal sanity but is borrowing like a drunken Keynesian, writes Fraser Nelson No one dispenses advice to the eurozone better than David Cameron. His speech yesterday was a fountain of good sense and hard truth. Quite rightly, he said there’s no point in... Read more...
Last week I wrote about a major management reorganisation at Hull City Council. The council leader, Cllr Steve Brady, said he was looking to make at least £1 million in savings. He also added that the council has 'a top-heavy structure' which needs to be addressed. This is good to... Read more...
Earlier this year, Salford City Council held a referendum which asked residents if they wanted an elected mayor. Although fewer than 1 in 5 bothered to vote, a majority said yes, and elections took place on Thursday 3 May. Former Labour MP, Ian Stewart was duly elected.Last week he announced... Read more...
MPs in the South-West have joined the growing wave of anger against the government’s proposed tax on static caravans. Cornish MPs Dan Rogerson and Andrew George have both signed a parliamentary petition against the VAT hike, seeing it as a tax on holiday park caravans—a key part of the West... Read more...
After weeks of heavy rain, the sun shone in Nottingham at the weekend where TPA activists were collecting more signatures for our petition calling on the city council to publish online spending above £500. Perhaps it was an omen, as the disinfectant of light certainly needs to shine through the... Read more...