Britannia Radio

TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 15th April 2011 Tolley's Video We are delighted to share with you an exciting new video that we've made, featuring the world's fastest speaker! This viral campaign aims to highlight the excessive burden of our long and complex tax codes and we want as many people as possible to see it. Please share this with your friends and pass on the message. Click here to watch it. Our tax code is one of the longest in the world, over 11,500 pages. The 2020 Tax Commission released research in February showing that the guides for individual taxes were themselves longer than War and Peace, and that the world's fastest speaker would take a mammoth 5 days to read the entire guide continuously. This gave us an idea: we tracked down Steve Woodmore, the Guinness World Record holder for speed-speaking aloud, to show just how long our tax code is. Taxes in the UK are too high and the system is far too complicated. While some companies have the scale and resources to comprehend such complex rules, small businesses are hit hardest. The complex tax system inhibits growth and makes it harder to see all the tax you actually pay. Please fight back against this with us. Send the link to this video to your friends http://lowtax.es/tolleys If you use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter then post the video there too. It's so important that we untangle the tax web and this video brings home just how complex and ridiculously long it has become. Council Mileage Allowances We've exposed a huge number of councils for spending too much money on over generous mileage rates for their staff, find out just how much here. Most drivers can claim a tax free allowance from their employers if they use their car for work. When they do, HMRC recommends that this is done at 45 pence per mile (in 2009-10 the rate was 40 pence per mile), although many employers pay less than this. But the TPA has discovered, that most councils have been paying well above the HMRC rate – paying as much as 65 pence per mile for a 1.2 litre engine car. That's a huge difference. If a council employee claims for 500 miles over the course of a year they would receive an extra £125. Commenting as our new research was released, Matthew Sinclair, Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "It is shocking that the same councils that are pleading poverty are paying well above the recommended mileage rate. This extra cost on all those journeys makes up a large part of the half a billion pound bill for taxpayers. Ordinary motorists who are feeling the pinch will be shocked that council staff are getting such a generous deal for their mileage claims, it simply isn't fair. Some authorities have shown that it is possible to save millions by cutting back to the rate recommended by the taxman. This is a quick and painless saving that won't affect council services and will ease the burden on households, who've seen Council Tax double in the last decade." Reducing mileage allowances down to government recommended rates is a quick and easy saving and one that all councils should implement immediately. Sandwell Council reckon it could half their mileage bill, saving £1 million. With so much fat to trim, it's time councils stopped pleading poverty, rolled their sleeves up and found some genuine savings. If you want to see how much your council has been giving out you can download the full report here. Please ask your council to make savings by reducing their mileage rates to approved levels. You can write to them here. The report was covered in lots of papers and the TPA staff took to the airwaves to discuss the findings and call for councils to stop spending money unnecessarily. Here are just a few of the hundreds of mentions our report got in the media: BBC Breakfast BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 5 Live LBC ITV Central Sky News Radio BBC Radio Somerset BBC Radio Ulster BBC Radio Belfast BBC News Online: Minsters criticise 'wasteful' council mileage perks The Sun: Town Hall car perks The Daily Express: Councils rapped over mileage cash The Daily Mail: Town halls £427M bill for mileage The Commentator: As austerity bites, why are local councils paying millions in perks to their employees? Rally Against Debt - Location The location for the Rally Against Debt has been finalised, it will be held at Old Palace Yard, Westminster, London SW1P 3JY. It is on Saturday, May 14th and will start at 11.00am, finishing by 2.00pm. The TPA will be joining the Rally Against Debt, an event organised on Facebook that now has over 1,700 people registered to attend. We’ve promised that if over 2,000 people register to attend the TPA will bring out our Debt Clock, a huge screen counting up the national debt mounted on the side of a lorry. We’d love for you to join us down in London for this event to highlight the national debt. If you’d like to come along and show your support for this cause then drop us an email to let us know you are coming, or visit the Facebook event pageand register your attendance. Of course we'd like an idea of numbers, but do feel free to just turn up on the day. And please invite your friends as well. Grassroots The TPA has always been a grassroots campaign, we want to speak out on your behalf but also give you a platform to speak out and be heard. We rely on tip offs from supporters and work hard to push for better government and lower taxes. There are a number of ways you can help us speak out on your behalf. Often we'll point out petitions or show you how to get in touch with your elected members of government. We have a grassroots activist in Hampshire who would love to have others join him. If you live in the area and you want to help watch out for examples of waste, inefficient government or sneaky stealth charges then do get in touch. Best of the Blogs Burning our Money: Non-job of the week - Why does a waste quango need a communications team? Campaign: A different rule for MPs? - Have MPs learnt their lesson after the expenses scandal, asks Guy Bates 2020 Tax Commission: Should we broaden the base of VAT? - Matthew Sinclair makes the case against extending VAT to all goods Better Government: HR Transparency is contagious - Chris Daniel on the first councils to move towards full HR transparency Grassroots: Somerset rubbish tax - Tim Newark: "Not only have I become an unpaid bin man, but I am to be charged for the privilege" Economics 101: Gordon Brown admits a mistake, but politicians now might be making an even bigger one - Matthew Sinclair looks at financial regulation and argues that politicians could be making serious new mistakes that lead to new crashes and bailouts