An exciting event has been organised for 14 May in London. After the March for the Alternative a fortnight ago, a group of activists set up a Facebook page for a Rally Against Debt. The event will highlight the importance of tackling the huge public sector deficit, and the need for substantial spending cuts. More than 1,600 people have already signed up to attend and many more are expected to between now and 14 May. The TPA will be there and it would be fantastic to see as many of our supporters as possible. Although a final location has not yet been established there are more details on this Facebook event page. Please register that you will be attending on that page if you use Facebook. If you don't use Facebook, then please do just come along. We will be revealing more details on our website and in future bulletins, we hope you can make it! Many taxpayers will feel this is unfair, especially, as The Independent reported, as Pakistan is reportedly buying six state-of-the-art submarines from China. We responded to the aid announcement and reiterated our call for DfID’s budget to be frozen, not increased: "It defies belief that Cameron admits money is tight at home and he's hitting Brits with higher taxes, yet in the same breath he's pledging huge handouts on our behalf. Pakistan needs to take more responsibility for its own education system and not keep expecting hand outs and subsidies from UK taxpayers whilst wasting money elsewhere. Pakistan already gets millions from the UK, it's ludicrous that our PM acknowledges that so much of that is squandered while promising more." A new financial year started on Wednesday, and there have been mixed reactions to what tax and benefit changes mean for families across the UK. There is good news: raising the lower threshold for Income Tax will take around 880,000 people out of tax altogether, and make 23 million basic rate taxpayers £170 a year better off. There is also some good news on ISAs, which will help savers, and Capital Gains Tax, benefitting investors. Families faced a decade of tax hikes while spending went through the roof. It's unfair for the Government to back to taxpayers' pockets to plug gaps in the public finances. They must do more to reduce spending and allow businesses and families to get on and drive the recovery. Read Rory Meakin's view on this here. Bath and the South West grassroots coordinator, Tim Newark, highlighted how Bath and North East Somerset Council are charging traders to place A-boards outside their businesses. During tough economic times, this is the last thing they need. Councils should be doing more for less, not cutting in politically motivated ways while finding ways to increase their income via the back door. Councils need to become more effective. Stealth taxes are regressive, they hit the less well off the hardest and the last thing residents or small businesses need is dramatically higher charges that will stop them from living their lives or running their businesses, creating jobs and helping the economy grow. If your local council is doing something similar and increasing taxes by the back door, let us know by replying to this e-mail. Former minister and Labour MP for Scunthorpe, Elliot Morley, yesterday admitted he was Parliament's biggest expenses cheat. Burning our Money: Non job of the week - Non-jobs adverts now obscuring the guilty employer Economics 101: False Economy economical with the economics - False Economy playing fast and loose with economics, says Matt Sinclair Grassroots: Farewell to Hull in Print - Andrew Allison celebrates the demise of Hull City Council's 'propaganda rag' Economics 101: Black Wednesday and inescapable cuts - Rory Meakin: "The question is what do we cut: household living standards (by raising taxes), business investment (by borrowing) or government waste (by cutting spending)?" Grassroots: The costs of new dental regulations - How the health reforms threaten to heap even more regulation on dentists - and costs on taxpayers Campaign: How many cats does it take to rip up red tape? - Charlotte Linacre on the need for less bureaucracy
TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 8th April 2011
Rally Against Debt
If 2,000 people register to attend then we will bring down our Debt Clock. The Debt Clock was a highlight of our campaign last year and can accompany the rally to really drive home the sheer scale of the debt mountain which years of profligate spending has left us with. Development cash being wasted, but more being pledged
Cameron David Cameron has pledged another £650 million more of your money in aid to Pakistan. This is despite the fact that budgets are tight here at home and that millions we already give often ends up in the wrong hands. A National Audit Office (NAO) report this week revealed that the Department for International Development (DfID) has admitted that it is not in control of where large chunks of taxpayers’ money end up. The NAO also notes that DfID aren’t even aware of how much money is being wasted or even doing more harm than good. With the DfID budget increasing by a third, £3.3 billion more by 2014, these are damning findings and indicate that more of taxpayers’ money will be wasted. New financial year
However, this all has to be paid for somehow. We believe that it should be paid for by cutting out wasteful spending at every level of government and taking a scythe to the bloated quango state, not with other tax hikes. But unfortunately, while the Government is taking some action on spending, there are a few nasties that will hit taxpayers this year. The threshold at which taxpayers have to start paying the higher rate of tax has been reduced to £35,000. This means you’ll pay Income tax at 40 per cent if you earn more than £42,475 (previously it was if you earn more than £43,875); and of course National Insurance is also up 1 per cent. Stealth Taxes
We’ve been hearing lots from supporters and journalists about local councils up and down the country increasing charges on everything from leisure centres to car parks to being buried! These extra charges are a shameless attempt to boost council coffers, and show that authorities aren’t taking the need to cut spending seriously. We were quoted in The Sun article (pictured) pointing out that it is atrocious that councils are hiking up taxes on burials plots. MPs' expenses trial update
The 58 year old was condemned as "blatantly dishonest" for claiming more than £30,000 on fake mortgage payments between 2004 and 2007. It's a shame that it took Morley so long to make an admission of guilt. It means that taxpayers had to suffer the insult not only of him stealing from them, but then lying about it for so long and dragging out an expensive prosecution. Our reaction to his plea was reported in several newspapers, including the Daily Mail.
Elliot Morley will be sentenced at a later date. His own barrister accepted it was not a question of "if but how long" he faced behind bars. He claimed thousands of pounds more than any of the other MPs convicted so far. Jim Devine, the first MP to stand trial in the wake of the expenses scandal, was jailed for 16 months for offences totalling £8,385. Two other former Labour members, David Chaytor and Eric Illsley, have already been jailed after pleading guilty to falsely claiming £22,000 and £14,500 respectively. Former Tory peer Lord Taylor of Warwick awaits sentencing after being convicted by a jury in January of falsely claiming more than £11,000.Best of the Blogs
Saturday 9 April 2011
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