Chris Huhne calls for excessive green taxes to be even more excessive Our most recent research, finding that green taxes are excessive relative to the IPCC social cost of carbon by over £20 billion, can be found here. Using an identical method, researchers at the Department for Transport found that taxes on flights have been excessive since February 2007, and they have risen sharply since then as you can see here. Understandably, then, many people have wondered whether we might see a similar phenomenon over here. The closest thing to date is probably my own group, the TaxPayers' Alliance, which has tens of thousands of grassroots supporters for its low-tax, small-state agenda. But the truth is that a mass movement along the lines of the Tea Party would be difficult or impossible to sustain. This week the European Commission released a report revealing truly staggering figures on the cost of European bureaucrats’ pensions to European taxpayers. The Eurostat report predicts that the cost to European taxpayers could reach £85 billion in the next 50 years. Contributions from UK taxpayers to this enormous pension pot could reach £8.5 billion over the same period. At a time when many British people are struggling to pay into their own pension funds, many will rightly be outraged that their taxes are supporting comfortable retirements for the massive bureaucracy working in Brussels. Fiona McEvoy noted that “Taxpayers are already overburdened with UK public sector pension liabilities without having to fund gold-plated pensions for Eurocrats.” The Daily Mail revealed that the majority of European bureaucrats are entitled to pensions worth 70 percent of their salary upon retirement, an average of £57,194. 17,500 people are currently entitled to receive pensions of that value and by 2040 that number is expected to rise to a shocking 37,500. Not only does the European Union cost the British taxpayer tens of billions per year, the growth in the massive Brussels bureaucracy is saddling future generations of taxpayers with a cost we simply cannot afford. To quote the German newspaper Bild, that extravagance is like a “gigantic avalanche bearing down on taxpayers.” This shows yet again how important it is that we continue to campaign against wasteful EU spending and work to halt this colossal EU rip-off.
Green taxes are already excessive and a heavy burden on ordinary taxpayers who need to drive to work or get away on a well deserved holiday. Despite that, this week Chris Huhne made an incredible call for them to rise by hundreds of pounds per taxpayer. Most people will see through their claims that this won't mean higher taxes over time, and their assurances that this will be ‘revenue neutral’. Politicians should be looking to ease the burden on ordinary families, not find new excuses to increase revenue and avoid necessary spending cuts.
Cost of Eurocrats pensions to UK taxpayers revealed
Best of the blogs
Burning Our Money: Debt interest takes off - Mike Denham with the latest figures for Britain's debt interest payments
EU: What's the catch? - Lee Rotherham on the continuing damage caused by the Common Fisheries Policy
Burning Our Money: Non-job of the week - Fiona McEvoy with another non-job of the week
Grassroots: Lincoln Council monitoring allottment applicants - Diversity monitoring for allotments? Fiona McEvoy highlights local authority nonsense at its worst.
Campaign: Opening Auntie's books - Emma Boon questions whether the NAO will be given full access to the BBC's books
Saturday, 25 September 2010
TPA Bulletin - 24th September 2010
High pay in the public sector revealed
On Monday the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed that no fewer than 9,000 public sector workers make more than the Prime Minister, and over 38,000 make over an impressive £100,000. The BBC's Panorama reported on the findings, which confirm that there are a huge number of well paid staff in the public services.
That report built on the Public Sector Rich List and the Town Hall Rich List produced for a number of years by the TPA. It is really great news that our approach of letting taxpayers know how their money is being spent on executive pay is being taken up by other organisations, as well as the Government who have published similar lists for staff at many quangos and for special advisers directly. That will mean greater accountability. It will also mean an external restraint on executive pay that is urgently needed, TPA research has shown that in local government – for example – the number of staff earning more than £50,000 has risen by nine times in a decade in local government against three times in the wider economy.
You can find the research here. Do take a look and if you don’t feel you are getting value from staff at your local council then write to the councillors; or write to your MP if the amounts being paid to staff in other organisations looks excessive; for the BBC try the BBC Trust. Let us know if you get any interesting responses!
E-mail Chris Huhne and let him know that you don’t want to pay more when you drive to work or take a well-earned break!
No British Tea Party
TPA Founder, Matthew Elliott, wrote in the Daily Telegraph this week about the proposition of a Tea Party movement in the UK. Despite acknowledging their successes in the states, he expressed doubt that the a Tea Party would be as effective here in quite the same way. He said:
"(In the US) The Tea Partiers were best described by Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, as "a movement that blew up in a reaction to spending and threatened tax increases". And their philosophy enjoys wide support. According to the pollster Scott Rasmussen, more than half of the electorate now "favour" the Tea Party's ideas, 35 per cent actively support it, and between 20 and 25 per cent claim to be members.
That doesn't mean the British public aren't angry about wasteful spending and high taxes. But the Tea Party is best understood as part of a wider phenomenon. In many countries, our own included, the recession has provoked fury among ordinary taxpayers, who face real hardship but are still expected to pay the bills for feckless politicians and bloated bureaucracies".
To read this interesting analysis in full, just click here.
Economics 101: Shocking waste - Jennifer Dunn on Haringey council's expensive attempt to encourage the use of electric cars
Grassroots: Augmented pensions at East Riding of Yorkshire Council - Andrew Allison, TPA regional co-ordinator, reports on continuing pensions largesse in East Riding of Yorkshire.
Grassroots: New Council Tax - Tim Newark, TPA regional coordinator, on a new council money-spinner in Bath
Better Government: How do you solve the problems with the railways - Jennifer Dunn examines the latest proposals for reforming the railways
EU: Tribute - Lee Rotherham questions the ongoing flow of cash to Brussels
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