Taxpayers' Alliance

The 'Taxpayers Alliance' has now started to look at who this government should set their sights on for cuts and when they should happen....  

Taxpayers' Alliance: Cut pensioner benefits 'immediately'


Ministers should waste no time to make unpopular cuts to pensioner benefits, a think tank director has said.
Many of those hit by a cut to the winter fuel allowance might "not be around" at the next election, said Alex Wild of the Taxpayers' Alliance.
And others would forget which party had done it, he added.
At the group's meeting at the Conservative conference in Manchester, former defence secretary Liam Fox said spending cuts must be "for keeps".
Mr Wild said the Tories could not wait until a year before the next election to make the necessary cuts to the winter fuel allowance, free bus passes, the Christmas bonus and other pensioner benefits.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34439965

They sound like lovely caring people - it seems the agenda is to be the killing off of 'surplus' population

The Taxpayers' Alliance make IDS look like a leftie - they don't really want to pay any tax at all, preferring government to consist ideally of one man and a dog. (The man only being there to feed the dog).

The Tories now have 5 years in which to wreak as much damage as they can to this society so I can't say I'm surprised to see them beginning to line up pensioners in their crosshairs. These people have always, in the main, supported them so I do wonder what the reaction will be them being targeted.

Welcome to our world, I say...

Surprisingly perhaps, even the Taxpayers' Alliance admits that we're not "all in this together" and that the poorest 10% of the population are taxed the most heavily:-

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2015/08/poorest-10-taxed-most-heavily-tpa-research-finds

Let’s talk about tax as a force for common good – or we lose the debate

From an article by Julian Baggini:-

31 July should have been a day of great civic celebration. For the first 212 days of the year, every penny you’ve earned you’ve kept for yourself. In the meantime, you’ve been enjoying and helping others enjoy the health service, public education, kerbside waste collection, policing, defence, pensions, roads and welfare payments, all for free. Only since 1 August have you started to contribute your share to the many benefits of a modern, developed state.

No one is celebrating such a social solidarity day yet. However, for several years the Adam Smith Institute and the Taxpayers’ Alliance have been advocating something they call tax freedom day, which fell this year on 3 June. They tout this as “the first day of the year that you start earning money for yourself”, since on average all we earn for 154 days of the year we pay in taxes.

For economic libertarians, taxation is a deprivation of what is ours by natural right. For those who favour a welfare state, taxation should be a fair payment towards a well-functioning, just society. Tax freedom day has been an effective rhetorical tool for advancing the tax-as-theft worldview. It is now as politically difficult to speak positively of tax as it is easy to praise the things we spend these taxes on, as though we can be in favour of the NHS while being against what funds it. Government is portrayed not as the servant of the people but as our tyrannical master. Unless and until we make it normal to see taxation primarily as a valuable contribution to our own and the common good, the narrative that government is the enemy and tax is theft will continue to prevail.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/01/tax-debate-freedom-day-society-theft

Ivan

Tax dodging is now endemic, and has been for years. Tradesman, engineers, construction workers, etc who work via agencies have for years been classed as 'self-employed' simply in order for themselves, the agency, and pay company to limit the tax they pay. There have been various schemes over the past decades.....CIS, umbrella, limited company etc and people who would once simply apply for a job with a company, get it, and pay their taxes via PAYE, are now more or less forced onto such schemes by 'agencies' - you will be told the rate for 'limited' or 'umbrella' is £18ph but if you ask about going PAYE your rate is dropped to around £14ph. You are then put in touch with companies / accountants who will try to ensure you keep at least 85% of your pay. This has went on for years.......recent attempts by Osborne to clamp down on 'umbrella' companies have only served to expose the fact that in reality workers have, via being lured into such schemes, failed to realise the base rate for their work has barely budged in years. It's all been a massive con.........and even the workers themselves have partaken in it - faking expenses receipts for travel, mileage, accommodation, or even being paid via offshore companies and avoiding tax altogether (I'm talking about ordinary skilled trades doing this whilst working in the UK) etc for years. Such schemes also apply to IT workers, and a range of other jobs. This will have lost the revenue £billions over the years.

The reality is that it is not just the rich and super rich who avoid paying their share; this greed has been spread to electricians, plumbers, builders, IT workers, etc. Cameron recently boasted about the number of new businesses starting up under his Tory government........the truth is it was simply ordinary workers being told by agencies the best way to maximise their earnings was to set up a Limited Company via Companies House - these aren't really 'businesses'....they are simply people working for an employer via an agency and setting up a limited company to retain as much of their wage as possible for themselves - if you play the game/system right you can retain 90-95% of your gross pay, you can vat register and that makes you an extra bit money for doing nothing. It's a legitimised scam and a mess. People have stopped appreciating why paying tax is important. A widespread return to PAYE is what is needed......the problem we'd have - a lot of peed off poorer tradesmen etc realising how their real wages have in actuality stagnated for years and the feelgood factor has only been given to them via the various dubious tax schemes they have used.

Unsurprisingly, HMRC have set out some fairly rigorous "rules" which decide whether an individual can or cannot claim to be "self-employed".

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/employment-status-indicator

ow,

This new legislation kicked in in April this year. Hundreds of thousands of people paid via umbrella companies have suffered substantial pay cuts because of it - 13% pay cut on average. The ruling surrounding umbrella payments is very confused and not good. The employee pays two lots of N.I - employers and employees......they are basically paying the employment agencies stamp for them (agencies got into trouble through the schemes they were using a couple of years ago and received substantial fines - a cost they have through the new rules simply passed on to the worker). Agencies are currently being heavily audited by HMRC, and are being very careful at present. Whilst being considered self-employed enough to pay 'employers' N.I the worker is simultaneously being told they cannot be self-employed if they fail the vaguely worded S.D.C questions (90% fail)....and as a result can no longer claim expenses as they used to. If they decide to go P.A.Y.E agencies will drop the pay rate by around 20%. This has resulted in people being advised to 'go limited company'. I wouldn't describe the new rules (of which Osborne played a significant role in) as being rigorous - they are vague, convoluted, ill considered, and unfair (on temporary/contract workers) - a sticking plaster barely hiding an ugly wound and which will become prone to slipping off after doing little good. I know contractors working away from home who have had to pack the jobs in because they could no longer claim travelling, subsistence, etc and were also forced to pay the two lots of N.I. On the umbrella scheme you now have around 43%-45% offtakes from your gross pay.....until April it was about 30% - I'm really surprised (or perhaps not) this hasn't been reported much at all....................but now people are simply going limited company to avoid this and the Tories can boast about all these new 'businesses' springing up. It's a mess.

To me the sensible solution is to return agency workers to PAYE; but the problem is, as I stated above, they would then be poorer and realise that whilst being given the impression they earn say £18ph - because of these tax schemes, they would then be told they were really only worth £13 - 14ph in the PAYE system. Could they be convinced now after years of paying as little tax and NI as possible that paying into the system is a good thing?? Or would they be happier keeping as much of their income as possible and supporting more Welfare Cuts and demanding more money is spent on the NHS, schools, infrastructure? We have become a nation of blind with greed hypocrites.

.....and, of course, if employment agencies returned to paying workers PAYE what would happen to all those 'leech' payment/umbrella companies and their employees who make money by charging the agency worker £20 per week (deducted from your wage) to process your wage payment.

Owen Jones, 'The Establishment', p.32:-

"The Taxpayers' Alliance is a right-wing organisation funded by conservative business people and staffed with free market ideologues. And yet it presents itself as though it were simply the voice of the taxpayer. After all, 'alliance' itself implies some sort of broad coalition. From its early days, the Alliance's pronouncements were invoked by news outlets more or less as the impartial mouthpiece of the hardworking taxpayer."