From myself and everyone at the TaxPayers' Alliance we wish you a very happy new year and hope you had a most enjoyable Christmas. It was a busy festive period for our team as we published three research papers, Mandarin millionaires, the tax on Christmas and council Christmas celebrities. Mandarin millionaires: Whitehall pension pots Our research showed that permanent secretaries who head up UK government departments, are securing guaranteed bumper pay-packets for life via their pension pots. 13 have pension pots worth over £1 million, which means on average they will receive around £58,000 per year during retirement.
The mandarin with the largest pension pot, at £2,055,000, was Simon McDonald, head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Bumper pensions for senior public servants continue to survive despite many taxpayers seeing their own savings squeezed. It cannot be right that annual pension payments for civil service bigwigs will be worth almost double the average salary. Politicians need to reform this racket once and for all! The tax on Christmas A week before Christmas Day we revealed that a UK household will pay an average of £212 in tax on their festive spending. That's enough to buy 18 luxury Christmas puddings at Lidl. Across the whole country the total Christmas tax bill came to £5.9 billion. Taxpayers are not Christmas puddings to be raided for pound coins - the new government should look to wipe out wasteful spending and reduce the tax burden. Our media campaign manager Sam Packer explains more in this handy video. Council Christmas celebrities Sadly the bad news didn't stop there as we found that a small number of local authorities spent over £310,000 on celebrities to turn on Christmas lights between 2016-17 and 2018-19. Four local councils spent more than £20,000 on these celebrity Christmas light switch-ons. Perth and Kinross council topped the tree by spending a remarkable £155,250 on celebrities. This included the likes of Pixie Lott, James Arthur, Professor Green and Alesha Dixon. (I haven't heard of them either).
Councils claiming to be cash-strapped should not be gifting taxpayers' money to showbiz agents for Christmas celebrity payoffs. These are vital funds that could and should have been spent on improving local services. Let me know your thoughts on our festive research papers.
Our heat map (pictured) shows just how severe last year's rises were, especially when you consider that the tax burden is already at a 50 year high. With this in mind, please let us know about tax rises in your area and we will aim to organise an action day. Councils claim their budgets are cut to the bone but our research keeps showing that this simply isn't true. They must get their finances in order and stop asking us to dig ever deeper into our pockets. Let me know about council tax rises in your area.
Costly cabs Figures obtained by the TPA under freedom of information requests show that Whitehall mandarins spent more than £13 million on taxis and private cars over the last three years. The Ministry of Defence was the worst offender, splashing out nearly £3.5 million of taxpayers' cash in total.
Commenting on the story for The Sun our chief executive John O'Connell encouraged greater use of public transport: "While some use of taxis is unavoidable, civil servants should not be capitalising on the convenience of constant cab rides, especially around the capital. The election should hail a new attitude in Whitehall, with officials ditching the taxis and sticking to using the same public transport as everyone else.” Supporters of low taxes should be optimistic Writing for ConservativeHome shortly after the general election John made clear that despite Tory plans for more spending there are encouraging signs when it comes to tax cuts. He writes: "Even on fiscal policy, when the Conservative manifesto was released it contained great policies like the cut to national insurance, with a view to align it to income tax over time, which the TPA has argued for since 2012." And there is more good news, "there is also talk of further devolution of tax and spend powers. Decentralised spending is well known to be linked to faster growth and improved productivity." The markets have already reacted positively to the election result; if there is an economic boom there will be room for tax cuts, especially for those on lower incomes. O'Little star Our policy analyst Jeremy Hutton was a guest on Dave Monk's BBC Radio Essex show to discuss our findings that Chelmsford council spent over £20,000 on celebrities to turn on Christmas lights. Jeremy questioned why councils consider this a good use of taxpayers' money. Additionally he argued that high earning celebrities should be willing to give back to local communities and attend such ceremonies for free. Click here to listen to the interview.
Flushing money away A freedom of information request has unearthed yet more wasteful spending by the Ministry of Defence. According to The Mirror, the cash strapped department spent nearly "£15,000 on 'gender-neutral' toilets – but female staff are refusing to use them because they are 'too smelly'."
Commenting on the story a TPA spokesperson expressed their dismay, "Creating gender-neutral toilets no one wants to use is flushing public money down the drain. Instead of frittering away cash for right-on nonsense, officials should focus on putting every penny into frontline services." Please send me your examples of wasteful public spending.
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We've barely begun the new year and
reports are already coming in of local authorities planning to raise
council tax by exorbitant amounts.
