The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act was introduced 'in the interests of national security' and offered a range of surveillance powers in order to fight the threat of terrorism. Unfortunately, the right to use the powers available under RIPA has widened from the police and security services to a range... Read more...
...but as predicted, those who have already been hit with fortnightly bin collections are also set to be the first to suffer the new bin taxes and aggressive charges for the heinous crimes of putting your rubbish out before 7.30am or leaving your bin lid slightly open. As much... Read more...
The decision by the Liberal Democrats yesterday to endorse a wide-sweeping tax cutting policy has set the newspapers ablaze with commentary this morning and again tax cuts are on the political agenda in the conference season. To call for lower taxes on low income families is particularly welcome as... Read more...
Lapses in Government data security are becoming incredibly common. Today, the Telegraph reports another case: "Four computer discs containing the details of 17,990 current and former staff were lost in July when they were sent between Whittington Hospital NHS Trust in north London and McKesson, a firm providing IT payroll... Read more...
Five months on from the publication of the Ten Per Cent Challenge, our detailed council-by-council proposals for how to cut council tax, there are encouraging signs that the publication has got into the internal discussions going on in Town Halls worried about their growing unpopularity. In Friday's PR Week,... Read more...
A new report has revealed that 35 out of the Liberal Democrats 53 English seats could be lost to the Conservatives unless they promise tax cuts. Coincidentally Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg has promised £20 billion in tax cuts condemning the Conservatives tax and spend plans as “unimaginative” and promising... Read more...
Download the full report (PDF).The most wide-ranging, comprehensive and up-to-date report on the issue of Corporation Tax, written for Conservative Way Forward (CWF) by Matthew Elliott, Matthew Sinclair and Corin Taylor of the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA), reveals compelling evidence based on the experiences of Britain's leading international competitors that a... Read more...
Further to the devastating findings of our report on Regional Development Agencies, a lot of our supporters have been writing to their MP, council or RDA to demand that the RDAs be scrapped. One supporter in the North East wrote to Dari Taylor, MP for Stockton South, about the issue.... Read more...
Yes, as a response to concerns about possible water shortages and the potential unaffordability of water in future, the EU is threatening to reach for the tax laws and tax water! EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has apparently come up with the brainwave to "ensure people pay for what... Read more...
The NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) has a bad reputation - it's over budget, running late, losing contractors, saddled with poorly negotiated contracts and at the end of it, it may not produce anything particularly useful. That's not a new opinion; you'll regularly hear politicians, journalists, industry analysts and... Read more...
Sorting Scottish fact from fiction* Our paper on the Barnett formula has stimulated considerable comment both in the mainstream media and the blogosphere (eg see the comments under Iain Dale's highly supportive post). We welcome the debate, and here are our responses to some of the more critical... Read more...
Dan Mitchell, for the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, sets out how tax competition, and tax havens, can make us all better off. Read more...
There has been study after study of NHS productivity since the Office for National Statistics first tried to measure health output. Since then they have included estimates of the change in quality. The Today programme reported this morning that their current conclusion is that in recent years there has been... Read more...
With an eye-watering 720 jobs on offer from government this week, I think it breaks a record for the amount of vacancies in government. Some of the highlights include Durham County Council offering six figure salaries for heads of directorates, assistant chief executives making the £100k limit that will definitely... Read more...
British taxpayers fund the Palestinian Authority (PA) through our contributions to the European Union (EU) budget and by our direct bilateral assistance to the PA. In 2006 this amounted to £47.5 million of our money going to finance the PA budget. The PA has used this money to create a... Read more...
There are good reasons for universities to try and find students from poor backgrounds. All things equal, it is reasonable to believe that the performance of a student facing significant disadvantages - thanks to the school they went to, the area where they grew up in or their family background... Read more...
The TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) presents a new and comprehensive study of the Barnett Formula, the Government system used to calculate the distribution of public spending between the four countries of the UK, that reveals the staggering cost to taxpayers of the spending gap between England and the three better-funded devolved... Read more...
Today the think tank Reform have released a new report 'Making the NHS the best insurance policy in the world'. At the launch the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, also set out some details of his party's healthcare policy. The Reform scheme is to reform the NHS... Read more...
We haven't always been the best of friends with Essex County Council, as they haven't always been the wisest spenders of taxpayers' money. Today, though, I'm delighted to say they have announced something excellent: a council tax rebate. Recognising that people are suffering increased hardship in the grip of... Read more...
This post first appeared on the Guardian's Comment is free. The announcement from the Conservatives that they will not renew their pledge to match the government's spending plans after 2011, and indeed will review the level of spending for 2010-11 should they win the election, is good news for... Read more...
While government in Sweden is far larger than in the UK, the gap has been narrowing fast over the past decade. And in certain areas, the country is not as high-taxing as you might think - the corporation tax rate has stayed at 28 per cent for a number of... Read more...
Trespassers will be shot; Council snoopers will be shot again. Makes a good yard sign, no? The front page of the Express today carries another ‘I don’t believe it’ story. Council snoopers now aim to extend their powers to regulate the great British garden. A DEFRA policy document aims... Read more...
The only way to stop politicians buying their votes with your money is to shrink the size of government and to cut taxes.We already knew that the rise in stamp duty threshold was not exactly going to benefit Londoners or the South East. But now it’s official: three out of... Read more...
A bit of pub philosophising here – or rather the outcome of a discussion at the weekend over a few jars – but what would get this country further up in arms over all issues relating to tax? One gem is to abolish what is called ‘withholding’ – the... Read more...