TaxPayers' Alliance

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The TaxPayers' Alliance is a Libertarian Conservative[1] British pressure group formed in 2004 to campaign for a low tax society and has over 18,000 supporters. It is a grassroots campaign, though described as being a front organisation of the Conservative Party by Polly Toynbee in The Guardian and Kevin Maguire in The Daily Mirror,[2][3] although the group's leadership has denied this.[4] All three founders, and a number of TPA staff members have associations with the Conservative Party and still have strong links with the right-wing Freedom Association.[5][6][7]

The mission of the TPA is:

  • To reverse the perception that big government is necessary and irreversible.
  • To explain the benefits of a low tax economy.
  • To give taxpayers a voice in the corridors of power.
  • To oppose EU tax harmonisation.[8]

Matthew Elliott[9] is the current Chief Executive of The Taxpayers' Alliance, which is a member of the Stockholm Network.

Contents

[edit] Prominent supporters

In November 2004 and December 2005, the Alliance sent letters to the Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph in opposition to high taxation.[10] The signatories included Adam Afriyie, Tim Congdon,Howard Flight, Ruth Lea, Patrick Minford, Andrew Roberts, Lord Salisbury and Roger Scruton.

[edit] Funding

The Taxpayers' Alliance is constituted as a limited company in the UK - number 04873888. As a small company, they are exempt from audit which means that they meet two of the following criteria:

  • annual turnover of £5.6 million or less
  • balance sheet total of £2.8 million or less
  • fewer than 50 employees.

They have two offices – one in London and one in Birmingham. Their website shows that, in March 2009, they employed 13 members of staff.

[edit] Campaigns, issues and publications

[edit] Bumper Book of Government Waste

Since 2005 the Alliance has published an annual book, The Bumper Book of Government Waste, detailing perceived financial mismanagement in government departments, local government, devolved government, The Royal Family and the European Union. [11]

[edit] Council Spending Uncovered

The Council Spending Uncovered Campaign uses accounts from every local authority in the United Kingdom, obtained through Freedom of Information requests, in order to "review spending by local authorities in all corners of the UK and identify a number of budgets that could and should be reduced....[the campaign] enables taxpayers to judge for themselves whether their money is well spent." [12] The Alliance argues that "By trimming the fat from their budgets, councils can reduce the burden on hard-pressed families and pensioners without cutting important services." [12]

So far the campaign claims to have uncovered:

  • £450 million of spending on local government publicity.[13]
  • a nine-fold increase in the number of local government staff earning £50,000 or more[14]
  • that the "outdated" Local Government Pension Scheme costs £4.6 billion in employer contributions each year, equivalent to £1 in every £5 of council tax[12]. Yet the average Local Government workers pension is just £50 a week.

[edit] Google Government

The TPA is a leading proponent of "Google government", arguing that taxpayers have a right to scrutinise how their money is being spent, and citing the success of similar initiatives abroad, for instance USAspending.gov, which was established by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 in the USA. To that end, TPA publishes information on public spending on its website, including the council by council data of the Council Spending Uncovered research series and the What's My Car Tax? database which allows people to find out how the 2008 Budget will affect their car tax.[15]

[edit] MPs' Expenses

The Alliance has called for more accountability and transparency in Parliament. In the aftermath of the Derek Conway scandal over the misuse of funding for political researchers, the TPA has called for greatly increased transparency, improved scrutiny of expenses and the abolition of some expenses such as the allowance for MPs' second homes.[16] The Alliance has also written to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to request an investigation into the expenses of Michael Martin, the current Speaker of the House of Commons. They have not, however, argued for commensurate levels of accountability from pressure groups that receive commercial funding, and critics have argued that they are only in favour of transparency from people who are elected, as opposed to transparency for organisations that conduct political campaigning for commercial ends. [17]

[edit] Awards

In 2006, the TPA won the ConservativeHome “One to Watch” award. In November 2007, chief executive Matthew Elliott was presented with the Conservative Way Forward ‘One of Us’ award by shadow foreign secretary William Hague.

In 2007 the TaxPayers' Alliance won the Innovation Award at the Stockholm Network's "Golden Umbrellas" think tank awards. [18]

[edit] Bibliography

Books
  • Matthew Elliott and Lee Rotherham The Bumper Book of Government Waste, 2006, Harriman House
  • Matthew Elliott and Lee Rotherham The Bumper Book of Government Waste 2008: Brown’s Squandered Billions, 2007, Harriman House
  • David Craig and Matthew Elliott The Great European Rip-Off: How the Corrupt, Wasteful EU is Taking Control of Our Lives, 2009, Random House
Pamphlets
  • James Barr and Matthew Elliott "Moving on up: EU tax harmonisation plans", October 1998European Foundation
  • Matthew Elliott, Matthew Sinclair & Corin Taylor "How cutting corporation tax would boost revenue", September 2008

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7241315.stm
  2. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/26/labour.tax
  3. ^ http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/maguire/2008/03/19/points-of-disorder-115875-20355809/
  4. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7241315.stm
  5. ^ http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/about/2007/08/florence-heath.html
  6. ^ http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/about/2007/08/matthew-elliott.html
  7. ^ http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/about/2007/08/andrew-allum-fo.html
  8. ^ http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/about/mission.php
  9. ^ Profile of Matthew Elliott
  10. ^ http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/about/business_supporters.php
  11. ^ http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste/2007/10/the-bumper-book.html
  12. ^ a b c http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/home/files/council_spending_uncovered_3_pension_contributions.pdf
  13. ^ http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/home/files/council_spending_uncovered_1_publicity.pdf
  14. ^ http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/home/files/council_spending_uncovered_2_middle_management_pay.pdf
  15. ^ http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/whatsmycartax/
  16. ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=512742&in_page_id=1770
  17. ^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3428007.ece
  18. ^ http://www.stockholm-network.org/downloads/press/GUWinners.pdf

[edit] External links

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