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TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 26th August 2011 - HMRC gives up on billions - Comment articles on Let them eat carbon - Jacqui Smith the expenses zombie rips us off from beyond the political grave - Grassroots: Tameside Action Day - Best of the Blogs HMRC gives up on billions This week we released a new research note as part of the 2020 Tax Commission project looking at the £27.4 billion that HMRC has had to give up on in remissions and write-offs. That is partly a sign of how much pressure there is on families and businesses. When a business goes out of business there will often be debts to HMRC that can't be recovered. But it is also partly the result of official errors and mistakes in administering taxes and credits, and yet more evidence that we need to reform the system to make it simpler so it isn't too taxing for the taxman. The research note was covered in the national newspapers, on BBC and commercial radio. You can read more here. Comment articles about Let them eat carbon Following on from the launch of his new book Let them eat carbon - on the high cost of failing climate change policy - Matthew Sinclair has written two comment articles. In the first, at the end of last week, he wrote for the Wall Street Journal Europe about how expensive targets to cut emissions and use more renewable energy were undermining vital progress in other objectives like reviving the economy and controlling public spending. In the Daily Express he wrote about how the Government couldn't keep heaping such a huge burden on families. You can order a copy of the book on Amazon or keep up to date with the debate around it here. Jacqui Smith the expenses zombie rips us off from beyond the political grave The Sun has revealed that former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith used the services of two day release prisoners – detained at our expense – to decorate her £450,000 home in Redditch when they were supposed to be working to benefit the local community. When she was an MP, and while claiming on her website she lived in Redditch, Jacqui Smith registered a bedroom in her sister’s London house as her main residence, so the same Redditch house could be a second home and she could claim £116,000 in various expenses for it over six years. It is incredible that, even after being booted out of office by the voters, she is still trying to take advantage. There is more detail in a blog by new TPA intern Daniel Jennings. Grassroots: Tameside Action Day On Saturday 3 September, we are holding an action day in Tameside, Greater Manchester. We will be meeting in the Market Place, Ashton-under-Lyne, at noon for a couple of hours of campaigning. We will be handing out TPA recruitment cards, and collecting signatures for a petition against the taxpayer funding of unions in Tameside. Funding union activities in Tameside costs council taxpayers there almost £337,000 a year. This is money that could - and should - be spent on front-line services. Please put this date in your diary and join us if you can. If you are able to attend then please letAndrew Allison know so that we can look out for you on the day. Once we have finished campaigning, you are more than welcome to join us for a late lunch, and some liquid refreshment! Event: Tameside Action Day When: 12.00 pm, Saturday 3 September Where: Market Place, Ashton-under-Lyne, Tameside, OL6 7JU What to bring: Just yourself and some friends Best of the Blogs Burning our Money: Non-job of the week - The council advertising for staff to plan fora one day event Campaign: Why does our money go to trade unions? - Taxpayers continue to pick up the bill for public sector staff working for the Unions Campaign: Why we should include PFI in the national debt - The insidious characteristic of PFI deals is they allow Government to spend taxpayers' money without admitting it Burning Our Money: Association of Police Authorities - Andrew Allison brings us another taxpayer funded group lobbying Government Grassroots: Somerset’s costly software - Tim Newark investigates how Somerset County Council got in huge trouble with a computer system that was supposed to handle payments Economics 101: Harvard Economist Jeff Miron takes on three myths about capitalism - The three myths about capitalism Campaign: Speed cameras: an accident in themselves? - The DFT have published the latest figures on the effect of speed cameras and their cost