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Now the dust has settled on Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement, taxpayers know they’re in for a rough couple of years. But just how rough is still being revealed.
As explained in a piece in the Daily Mail this week, wealth taxes on middle England will reach (wait for it…) £133.7billion over the next six years, via capital gains and inheritance tax. At the statement, Hunt froze the inheritance tax thresholds, dragging many more into this hated death tax.
Our chief executive, John O’Connell, summed it up for the Mail, saying: "Saving for a rainy day, building a nest egg and even passing your assets onto your children are all targets for the taxman. The chancellor should balance the books by getting a grip on the cost of government crisis, not by going after the hard-earned family silver."
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TPA head of research, Phil Basey, was furious at the plan and penned a piece for the Daily Express, explaining inheritance tax was distortionary, unfair and unpopular. He added: “And at an even more basic level, going after families for cash on the death of a relative feels deeply immoral.” Well said Phil!
The fallout of the fiscal statement will be with us for years to come. As our hard-hitting research laid out this week, the real burden of taxes works out at some 70.8 per cent of current GDP when you factor in lost growth.
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That’s £834 billion in unrealised economic activity, combined with the £825 billion paid in taxes, for a whopping £1.7 trillion burden of high taxes on our economy - £24,574 per person each year! The staggering numbers were picked up by media and local papers too, including CityAM and the Yorkshire Post.
No doubt there’s still plenty of nasty surprises awaiting taxpayers. And we’ll call them out, every step of the way. We couldn’t keep finding these numbers, or producing this hard-hitting research, without your help.
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TaxPayers' Alliance in the news
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Gas guzzling in Wales
Not content with revealing waste in just the English language, our investigation with the Countryside Alliance into the hypocrisy of Natural Resources Wales, where £1.6 million has been spent on gas guzzlers, hit the airwaves on the Welsh-language BBC Cymru and S4C.
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Our Welsh-speaking researcher Dr Mike Jones slammed the body for "not only failing to do its job, but doing damage to the cause they supposedly promote” and told the Welsh government “to get a grip on this wasteful body." Read it in the original Welsh, if you’d prefer.
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Foreign jollies at your expense
North of the border now, and our investigation into council flights discovered that Glasgow was the worst of the (bad) bunch, spending almost £33,000 and travelling 314,886 miles around the world. Councils across the UK travelled a total of 2 million air miles, despite a pandemic and despite many of the culprits declaring a climate emergency.
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The irony wasn’t lost on John, who told the Daily Mail: “While councils hike up rates and lecture residents about a climate emergency, bureaucrats are sent on luxury trips around the world.”
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MPs to be allowed to expense christmas parties
This week the Daily Mail also revealed shocking news that this would be the first year that MPs would be allowed to expense Christmas parties, meaning taxpayers would be picking up the tab for festive bashes.
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John was furious, telling the Mail on their front page story that: “MPs who want Christmas bashes should foot the bill themselves.” Meanwhile our investigations manager, Elliot Keck, joined TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer to tell her in no uncertain terms what he thought of the infuriating story.
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TfL getting tough on fare dodgers?
In what might be better news for taxpayers, Transport for London have announced plans to get tougher on fare-dodgers using increased fines.
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But Elliot raised an eyebrow in the Evening Standard, pointing out his research which shows that penalties for fare-dodging are still well below what they were during the pandemic. Taxpayers are still picking up the tab for excessive fare dodging!
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After days of watching politicians on television talk of ‘difficult decisions,’ our blog this week puts claims of a new age of austerity under the microscope. As we explain: “Despite the talk of savings in the autumn statement, the pace of winding down spending after the covid pandemic is radically slower compared to the early 1980s recession and the great financial crisis of 2008-2009.”
Some nifty charts sum it up nicely, like this one showing state spending proportions in the six years following recent crises - where spending after covid is set to continue at enormous levels by comparison:
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The data-packed blog tells us this isn’t the austerity for the public sector we’ve become used to under post-crisis Conservative governments, which have understood the need to reduce spending. It’s taxpayer austerity, balancing the books off the backs of working families.
Click to read more
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Love them or loathe them, cycle lanes are a common feature of roads and pavements in towns and cities across the country. Sadly, not all cycle lanes can really be called fit for purpose, as Worcester council have shown.
Town hall bosses have spent over £10,000 on a bike lane littered with a lamppost, a tree, bins, and even a speed camera, forcing cyclists to swerve into the pedestrian section of the pavement.
Local authorities must get their act together and not squander taxpayer cash on poorly thought through projects like this!
Please send me your examples of wasteful public sector spending
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Benjamin Elks
Fundraising, Operations, and Events assistant
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