Taxpayers' Alliance

The Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA) is a right-wing single-issue think tank and lobbying group advocating "lower taxes and reformed public services". On 19 September 2007, the Hayek Society, a LSE right-wing group, circulated a job description to its members for internships at TPA.

In a March 2009 presentation TPA Chief Executive Matthew Elliott and Tim Montgomerie described the TPA as part of the infrastructure of the conservative movement in Britain.

Susie Squire formerly of the Stockholm Network acted as the TPA campaign manager until 2010 when she left to work as an advisor to Iain Duncan Smith.

History

The Taxpayers' Alliance was set up in 2003 by Matthew Elliott, a 25-year-old political researcher for Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope. According to the Guardian Elliott had been impressed by Republican grassroots campaigns to cut tax and spending he had seen in America – particularly the work of Grover Norquist who campaigned against Hillary Clinton's healthcare plans during Bill Clinton's presidency. He argued:

'Up until that point Britain didn't need a taxpayers' group because we had the Conservatives, but then they stopped talking about it and so I saw a niche,'.

Elliott decided to affect public opinion through press campaigns, he was joined in setting up the alliance by his wife Florence Heath and Andrew Allum. The Guardian notes that Heath's father, Alexander, was also appointed despite living in France and not paying any British tax.

The conservative connections of the Taxpayers' Alliance founders

First Event

The first event held by the TPA was a joint venture with the Institute of Economic Affairs held on the 3-February-2004. The seminar was entitled Tax Harmonisation Versus Tax Competition: Which Promotes Prosperity?.

Funding and Transparency

An investigation by the Guardian in 2009 found that the TPA is funded by 'wealthy donors, many of whom are prominent supporters of the Conservative party'. The investigation found that:

'Sixty per cent of donations come from individuals or groups giving more than £5,000. The Midlands Industrial Council, which has donated £1.5m to the Conservatives since 2003, said it has given around £80,000 on behalf of 32 owners of private companies. Tony Gallagher, owner of Gallagher UK, a property company that gave the Conservatives £250,000 in 2007, is a member of the MIC, as is Christopher Kelly who owns the international haulage firm Keltruck, and Robert Edmiston who owns IM Group, a large car importer'.

TPA Funding rose from £64,457 in 2005 to more than £1 million in 2009. When asked for a list of funders/donors to the TPA the the group issued the following statement:

The TPA has is entirely funded by private, individual donations from many of the nearly 60,000 supporters we have across the UK. We have never received, nor will receive, funding from the taxpayers' purse. Our latest accounts are available on the Companies House website.

According to campaign group The Other Taxpayers Alliance, the Companies House information held on the TPA is sparse, they claim that:

It’s simply not true that all political organisations are secretive about their funding. Most declare their income and expenditure, and some give a break-down of income sources, including donors. The TPA does neither. It publishes abbreviated accounts which means income and expenditure are withheld. The last time it published full accounts was in 2006, when it recorded an income of £130,000. But the current organisation has ten full-time staff across two offices, which suggests either its income has jumped substantially or it is loaded with debt.

Tax Controversy

In 2009 The Guardian reported that TPA director Andrew Heath does not pay any UK tax..

Independence

In December 2008 Susie Squire from the TPA was asked by Nick Ferrari on his LBC Breakfast Radio Show if the Taxpayers Alliance was 'secretly Conservative?', she responded by saying:

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t have that – that’s outrageous! That’s just absolutely outrageous!' adding 'we’re totally independent, we talk to everyone. I mean, God, I was in Wales at the end of last week, giving evidence on MPs’ expenses to a cross-party independent panel in the Welsh Assembly. We talk to everyone who wants to talk to us. We produce research that goes out to many MPs, cross-party, that goes out to journalists. We don’t have a party preference. Yes of course we have advisors and we have a board – any think tank worth its salt does. We’ll talk to anyone.'

Squire left the Taxpayers Alliance in May 2010 to work as an advisor to the Conservative Party's Iain Duncan Smith.

Criticism

Conservative councillor for Ealing and Northfield Phil Taylor described his relationship with the TPA in February 2009:

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the TaxPayers’ Alliance. I was involved with them in their very early days. I helped them with their initial fund raising and organising but I got disillusioned because their first publication, The Bumper Book of Government Waste, mixed up capital and revenue and different years and wasn’t really a serious analysis of waste – at least not one that was any use to anyone.

Media Coverage

Paul Lashmar, an investigative reporter and lecturer in journalism at University College Falmouth, told the Independent that there was 'a direct relation between the rise of the TPA and the pressures on news organisations'. He argued that:

'Journalists are often now so overstretched that a lot of work that used to be carried out in the newsroom is carried out by groups like the TPA. You don't see extensive research anymore whereas it used to be commonplace in Sunday papers to have exercises where, for example, you would ring around every MP for their opinions as the TPA has done numerous times'.

Lashmar went on to say that:

'What you see now is journalists who are grateful for news which is almost perfectly packaged to go into the paper with a ready top line. In that sense, journalism is becoming very passive. It is a processor of other people's information rather than being engaged in actively seeking out and determining what the truth of a situation is in an energetic and inquisitive way.'

The majority of media coverage given to the alliances research is produced in the tabloid press with the Daily Express producing over 3,000 articles on the TPA since the campaign group was set up. The Independent and The Guardian have practically ignored the group and some of the TPA coverage in these papers has been critical.

Newspaper	Taxpayers Alliance Related Articles
The Express and Sunday Express	3071
Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday	1283
The Sun	978
Daily Star	701
Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph	591
The Times and Sunday Times	489
The Mirror and Sunday Mirror	463
The Guardian and The Observer	178
The People	75
The Independent	63

Current Campaigns

2020 Tax Commission

On 28 January 2011 the TPA launched an initiative entitled the 2020 Tax Commission. The commission is a collaboration between the TPA and the Institute of Directors. Commenting on the launch of the commission, TPA director Mark Sinclair argued that:

"Most people want the Government’s decisions about tax and spending to be fair, but we can’t decide policy on the basis of an overly simplistic understanding of what that means. Even the most progressive taxes can have perverse results, hitting some families much harder than others for no good reason. And there is nothing fair or progressive about trapping people in dependency on benefits and subsidies. It is vital that we start thinking about how to produce a tax system that is genuinely fairer for families and encourages a strong and dynamic economy."

The first research paper released by the Taxpayers Alliance for the 2020 Tax Commission project highlighted unfair tax scenarios by using 'celebrities and familiar characters from soaps like Eastenders and The Archers to draw hypothetical examples based on characters fictional tax circumstances'.

Hate Education

According to the Guardian it was Matthew Elliott's 'pro-Israel stance' and 'the perception that British taxpayers' money was being misused to subsidise the publication of incendiary schoolbooks' in the Middle East that led to the Taxpayers' Alliance's campaign against hate education. It argued that the campaign 'stemmed from Elliott's personal concern about incitement of hatred towards Jewish people in the Middle East' but diluted 'the idea that this is an alliance of ordinary taxpayers'.

Other Campaigns

Welfare Reform

Attacking the Spirit Level

<youtube size="medium" align="right" caption="Taxpayers' Alliance video on Welfare Reform">P2AuRz2sLaE</Youtube>

Wilkinson and Pickett's book the Spirit Level was criticised in a series of reports by the Taxpayers' Alliance, the Democracy Institute and the Policy Exchange. The criticisms from the Policy Exchange and the Taxpayers' Alliance were published just 24 hours apart.

Political Connections and Network

On 12th May 2010 the Taxpayers' Alliance held a roundtable meeting to discuss 'the election and its aftermath'. The meeting was attended by representatives from a range of right wing think tanks including the International Policy Network, Nothing British, Young Britons' Foundation, Adam Smith Institute, Progressive Vision, Civitas, Global Warming Policy Foundation, Centre for Policy Studies, Institute of Economic Affairs, Henry Jackson Society, Social Affairs Unit, Centre for Social Cohesion, Open Europe, Freedom Association and Institute of Directors. The meeting also had representatives from British Petroleum and London School of Economics.

Publications

• Susie Squire, Broke Britannia, The Guardian, 24-April-2009
• Taylor et al., Welfare reform in tough fiscal times, The Taxpayers Alliance, 2010
• Fair Taxes, 2020 Tax Commission, Taxpayers Alliance, 28-January-2011

People

Donors

The Midlands Industrial Council | Tony Gallagher | Christopher Kelly | Robert Edmiston | Anthony Bamford | Malcolm McAlpine | David Alberto | Stuart Wheeler | Rocco Forte | John Craven

Speakers at TPA Events

Eric Pickles | Liam Fox | David Davis

Founders

• Andrew Allum Chairman
• Matthew Elliott Chief Executive
• Florence Heath

Staff

• Emma Boon, Campaign Director
• Charlotte Linacre, Campaign Manager
• Tim Aker Grassroots Coordinator
• Blair Gibbs Campaign Director
• Fiona McEvoy West Midlands Campaign Agent
• Matthew Sinclair Policy Analyst
• Corin Taylor Research Director
• Susie Squire, Former campaign manager, left in 2010

Academic Advisory Council

• John Blundell – Director General, Institute of Economic Affairs
• Keith Marsden – Economic Consultant, United Nations
• David B. Smith – Chief Economist, Williams de Broe
• Norman Barry – University of Buckingham
• Keith Boyfield – Keith Boyfield Associates
• Eamonn Butler – Adam Smith Institute
• Tim Congdon – Lombard Street Research
• Stephen Davies – Manchester Metropolitan University
• Kevin Dowd – University of Nottingham
• Charles Hanson – Economic Consultant
• Ruth Lea – Centre for Policy Studies
• Patrick Minford – Cardiff Business School
• Kenneth Minogue – London School of Economics
• Michael Mosbacher – Social Affairs Unit
• Dennis O'Keeffe – University of Buckingham
• Madsen Pirie – Adam Smith Institute
• Gabriel Stein – Lombard Street Research
• Elaine Sternberg – University of Leeds
• James Tooley – University of Newcastle
• Alan Walters

Volunteers

• Mike Denham
• Saul Rowe
• Eben Wilson

Source

Affiliations

Hayek Society | Bruges Group | Institute of Economic Affairs | Heritage Foundation | The Business | Institute of Directors | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development | The Free Society

External Resources

• Sunder Katwala, Taxpayers alliance outed as conservative partisans (surprise, sensation!), Next Left, 15 March 2009.
• The Independent, How the Taxpayers' Alliance is making headlines, The Independent, 4-August-2008
• Phil Taylor, All Those Fat Cat Teachers, Philtaylor.org.uk, 2-February-2009
• Robert Booth, Who is behind the Taxpayers Alliance, The Guardian, 9-October-2009

References, Resources and Contact

Contact

The TaxPayers' Alliance
55 Tufton Street
London, SW1P 3QL

Website: tpa.typepad.com