By Rory Meakin The budget is almost upon us. As ever, the TaxPayers’ Alliance will be reminding the chancellor that what we really need is a recovery budget, not childish threats of tax rises. But the reports of potential personal allowance changes or pension raids sound eerily familiar, as... Read more...
Guest blog by Angus Gillan The housing market is arguably the greatest driver of intergenerational inequality in Britain and one of the most prominent socio-economic challenges. Home ownership is popular yet out of reach for many. Young people see affordable housing as a key issue that could improve their... Read more...
By Policy Analyst, Jeremy Hutton At the TPA, we consider it our duty to call out wasteful spending of taxpayers’ money wherever we see it, whether that be foreign aid largesse, councils gambling on commercial properties or the government ploughing ahead with exorbitant projects like HS2 or the Stonehenge... Read more...
By Scott Simmonds, researcher Here at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, we regularly highlight examples of wasteful spending in the higher education sector. From the University Rich List to exposing vice-chancellors’ costly cars and ritzy residences, we routinely reveal the lavish spending that comes from university budgets. So we looked at... Read more...
by Harry Fone, grassroots campaign manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance At first glance, 31 January isn’t a date to send a shudder down your spine. But for millions of Brits, its arrival in the calendar is most unwelcome. It’s the deadline by which taxpayers have to submit their Self... Read more...
By Jeremy Hutton, Policy Analyst Since 2015, the Conservative Party have not had to worry much about Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition outside of general election campaigns. Indeed, the principal opposition has often come from the Tories’ own benches. Delivering the annual Mais lecture earlier this month - the... Read more...
At the end of November, we finally unveiled the results of our months-long investigation with the Daily Mail. The front page series revealed the £5.6bn of waste which our teams had uncovered in a mountain of thousands of FOIs, public records and government releases. The stellar Daily Mail team,... Read more...
By Scott Simmonds, researcher Read more...
By Danielle Boxall, Media Campaign Manager If there’s one thing that drives motorists round the bend more than any other, it’s potholes. So potty in fact, that a recent RAC survey found it was UK drivers’ number one annoyance. It’s such a national obsession that every year on 15... Read more...
By Policy Analyst, Jeremy Hutton It has emerged that the government is set to shelve plans to reform the BBC. Despite widespread public support and promises made throughout the general election campaign last year - the PM looks set to u-turn on decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee. According to... Read more...
Relentless campaigning in 2020 by the TaxPayers’ Alliance has resulted in many fantastic policy victories; from the abolition of Public Health England, reducing the foreign aid budget, freezing MPs’ pay and uncovering £5.6 billion of government waste as part of a special investigation with the Daily Mail. Although these wins... Read more...
By Kieran Neild-Ali, Grassroots Assistant The TaxPayers’ Alliance has kept a close eye on PPE contracts ever since the start of the pandemic. In August, we denounced the government over unaccountable government contracts which ignored its own competitive tendering processes. This resulted in duff contracts being awarded to unreliable... Read more...
By Kieran Neild-Ali, grassroots assistant at the TaxPayers’ Alliance Council tax may be one of the most overlooked issues in Britain. The national media thinks it’s dull. Westminster doesn’t care, because they believe it is someone else’s problem. But it's a huge issue for almost every taxpayer. In our... Read more...
By Jeremy Hutton, policy analyst at the TaxPayers’ Alliance Following years of unabated campaigning by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the UK’s international development budget has been cut, and rightly so. Just as our polling from 2019 showed, taxpayers have supported this, recognising what many politicians do not: that an over-sized aid... Read more...
By Sara Rainwater, Operations Director Buying a home is one of the most exciting - yet often most stressful - times in a person’s life. The overly complex buying and selling process in England can take its toll on even the most resilient of people. I’ve moved country, done... Read more...
By Harry Fone, grassroots campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance The National Audit Office published its report on government procurement during the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday. It highlights a number of issues around public sector procurement - of which the TPA has long called for serious reform. But just how... Read more...
Kieran Neild-Ali, grassroots assistant British businesses have been dragged kicking and screaming back into a nationwide lockdown. Many shops, pubs and restaurants will sadly close their doors forever. The health of Britain's economy is in a desperate state. This is also true of an entire generation of young people... Read more...
Duncan Simpson, research director Popular Netflix series The Crown has gripped viewers around the world. It is a homage to the life of Queen Elizabeth II, detailing the history of 20th century Britain and cementing the relevance of the monarchy as a cultural and political asset of the nation.... Read more...
Rory Meakin, research fellow of the TaxPayers' Alliance The Resolution Foundation published Unhealthy finances yesterday, a report which highlights the fiscal damage being wreaked by coronavirus and makes the case for an austerity package to fall largely on taxpayers in middle Britain. Significant effort has clearly been put into it,... Read more...
By Duncan Simpson, research director of the TaxPayers' Alliance The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has published its report on overhauling capital gains tax. Much of the press coverage rightly presents the recommendations as radical. But the report itself is more measured than is often suggested. Most of the... Read more...
By Scott Simmonds, researcher at the TaxPayers’ Alliance With public sector net borrowing totalling £36.1 billion in September, the financial difficulty the UK is storing up for future taxpayers cannot be ignored. Figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility show that the UK deficit so far has already topped... Read more...
By Kieran Neild-Ali, grassroots assistant Time and time again, local authorities are caught red handed by the TaxPayers’ Alliance wasting taxpayers’ money and raising taxes - giving ratepayers a rotten deal. So when the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government commissioned Sir Tony Redmond to review the transparency... Read more...
By Kieran Neild-Ali, grassroots assistant. Lockdown has two sides: the very personal tale of socially distanced interaction with family and friends, and the sobering effect these measures have had on our jobs and the wider economy. But in some cases, the personal and the economic impacts of the government's... Read more...
By Michael Swadling of the Croydon Constitutionalists Did you know councils can’t go bankrupt? No matter how much of taxpayers’ money they risk on dodgy investments, mismanagement and harebrained schemes, they’re always protected from total financial collapse. The only way to stop councils spending reckless sums is by issuing... Read more...