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TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 4th November 2011 - Please support our fighting fund for 2012 - The true tax cost of your shopping at your fingertips - The EU moves towards a Robin Hood Tax while the Eurozone crisis continues - Calls to scrap National Insurance in the House of Commons - Fuel price petition set to be debated, plus other new popular petitions - Grassroots - Best of the Blogs Please support our fighting fund for 2012 Right now, we're preparing for a busy 2012. We have a lot of work to do next year - continuing the fight against wasteful spending locally and nationally; making sure that politicians keep on the straight and narrow with expenses; fighting increases in Council Tax; pushing for a better relationship for Britain with the EU; and promoting our blueprint for lower taxes and a sensible and streamlined tax system. Some of you may have received a fundraising letter from us recently. If you have not done so already, we hope you will send us a donation soon, so we can get all this important work done. If you didn't receive a letter from us, we still hope you will consider donating to the TPA. If you reply to this email with your postal address, we will happily send you our fighting fund letter and a copy of our Annual Review. Alternatively, you can donate via our website or by sending a cheque (made payable to "TaxPayers' Alliance", and sent to 55 Tufton Street, London SW1P 3QL). Remember you can download our latest Annual Review here where you can read all about all the policy victories we’ve had over the past 12 months. And, if you think that is impressive, we hope to achieve even more next year! But we will only be able to do this with your help. The true tax cost of your shopping at your fingertips We have launched our pioneering new smartphone and web app that’s free to use and will show you just how much tax you pay on everyday purchases. It is part of a major new tax transparency campaign to be released with our latest investigation into the true tax cost of items in your shopping basket. For example if you went to fill up the car with £60 of petrol it would have only cost £23.86 without taxes like VAT and duty. On top of that paying at the pump required £104.84 in earnings before income and corporate taxes. Read our new report here and make sure you download our free app here. CALL TO ACTION: With prices rising make sure you know what the taxman’s take is and download our app! Please share it with your family, friends and colleagues by telling them about it or by using it and sharing the results on Twitter and Facebook. Writing a quick review about our app and help spread the message about the need for tax transparency. The EU moves towards a Robin Hood Tax while the Eurozone crisis continues Matthew Sinclair appeared on Channel 4 news last night to add a healthy dose of reality to the rhetoric heavy debate about the introduction of a Tobin tax. The EU is keen to impose a Robin Hood Tax on the UK despite the disastrous effects it would have on our economy. Despite woolly words from Bill Nighy the reality is the tax would hit savers and pension funds rather than making the bankers pay. Rather than robbing from the rich to give to the poor this tax would give more money to the politicians leave the whole country a lot worse off. Be sure to watch our director Matthew Sinclair and Bill Nighy go head to head. Meanwhile TPA Research Fellow Dr Lee Rotherham was on Russia Today to give expert opinion on the implications of the latest Greek bailout. Lee, who authored Ten years on: Britain without the European Union, spoke about the Greek economic crisis that has been 25 years in the making. Predicting that the country will likely leave the Euro he made it clear that bailouts without proper reform were a pointless endeavour that threw good money after bad. You can watch the interview here. Calls to scrap National Insurance in the House of Commons Our influential report that calls for National Insurance (NI) to be scrapped was raised in the House of Commons on Monday. Douglas Carswell, the outspoken and independent minded MP for Clacton, asked if the Treasury would act on our proposal to simplify the tax system by abolishing NI. The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke MP, indicated that that the Treasury were looking at proposals to simplify the tax system and would be announcing policy shortly. You can watch the question and full response here. Fuel price petition set to be debated You may remember that we told you about a petition for lower fuel prices launched by Robert Halfon MP and our support for action to curb massive unfair taxes on motorists. That petition is now set to be debated in the House of Commons on the 15th of November. It's a great opportunity to follow up on the momentum after the Government made a small cut in Fuel Duty in March. Referendums were part of the TPA manifesto before the election, which we said we would use to hold a Government of any party to account. There are lots of popular petitions you might be interested in, including one calling for financial education to be a part of the school curriculum, another rapidly gaining support and opposing further mass immigration and the Daily Express petition on the EU - which could keep the pressure on politicians who voted against a referendum. You should consider looking through the petitions and signing up to the ones you agree with. They are an important democratic tool to keep politicians on their toes. Grassroots Hull Action Day Andrew Allison, TPA National Grassroots Coordinator, and our Head of Digital Policy Dominique Lazanski (both pictured) with a group of supporters were out pounding the streets of Hull over the weekend collecting signatures for our petition to end Kingston Communications monopoly in the city. They got a great response and were left in no doubt that almost everyone in the city wants a choice in their telephone and broadband supplier. Many people felt they were paying too much and believed they suffer from poor download speeds. If you can spare a couple of hours to help collect more signatures, please let Andrew Allison know. This is just the beginning of the campaign to get taxpayers in Hull a better deal. Bath Action Day On Saturday our Bath and South West Coordinator, Tim Newark, has organised an Action Day. We will gather outside the main entrance of Bath city centre Guildhall (near the Abbey) at 11.00 am for a group photograph and then move on to the Farmers Market at Green Park Station where we will hand out leaflets and get signatures for a petition calling to cut the wage of the new Bath & North East Somerset Council Chief Executive by £50,000 from £210,000 to £160,000. This is in line with the pay cut taken by Islington's chief executive, announced recently. Event: Bath Action Day When: 11.00 am, Saturday 5 November Where: City Centre Guildhall, Bath Best of the Blogs Burning our money: Non-job of the week - The troubled quango which pays it's accountants nearly half a million and more examples of anonymous recruitment for senior government roles via agencies Economics 101: Fun with the Regional Growth Fund - Matthew Sinclair has been looking into the evidence (or lack of) behind the number of jobs the Regional Growth Fund is purported to be creating Grassroots: North & North East Lincolnshire Councils save £1.3 million -How two Lincolnshire councils are setting an example by sharing services saving taxpayers' money Burning our money: Spending £4,000 celebrating saving money is missing the point -Local government savings don't need to be toasted with champagne, how the leader of Manchester City council spent £4,000 celebrating saving money Campaign: New Research: Sustainable Development Commission credit card spending revealed - The quango that argued against growth and its spending with taxpayer funded credit-cards Grassroots: Getting our money back from Icelandic banks - There's a glimmer of hope that councils might claw back some of the taxpayers' money they lost in the Icelandic banks writes Tim Newark