TaxPayers' Alliance

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The TaxPayers' Alliance is a British pressure group which ostensibly campaigns for a better deal for UK taxpayers but in reality pursues a right-wing pro-business, eurosceptic agenda while trying to get as much media coverage as possible. Its funding is shrouded in secrecy, but it has received money from several wealthy businesspeople and it appears to have close links to the UK Conservative Party.

It is the parent organisation of Taxpayer Scotland, which campaigns on a Scottish level, and is frequently quoted in the Scotsman newspaper. It also has a charitable arm PERT (Politics and Economics Research Trust). Its founder Matthew Elliott is one of 2 leaders of Vote Leave, one of the main groups campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union.

It has been accused of being a Conservative Party front by former Labour Party MP Jon Cruddas and journalists including Polly Toynbee and Kevin Maguire. In 2010 it moved into offices at 55 Tufton Street, London, near other mainly right-wing bodies including climate change denialists the Global Warming Policy Foundation (which is part-funded by fossil fuel companies), Adam Smith Institute, Social Market Foundation, Policy Network, Policy Exchange, Centre for European Reform, Tory Reform Group, Civitas, Centre for Policy Studies and Global Vision; it was also home to Vote Leave and Brexit Central during the campaign around the 2016 Brexit vote.

Prominent members

Matthew Elliott

Founder and former Chief Executive, a former researcher for Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope. He later led Vote Leave, one of the main campaigning groups in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Andrew Allum

Co-founder and Chairman until 2019; A management consultant in his day job.

John O'Connell

Became chief executive in 2016, having worked there since 2009.

Mike Denham

Took over from Allum as chairman in 2019, formerly worked as an economist.

Florence Heath

Elliott's wife, became a director.

Alexander Heath

Elliott's father-in-law, served as a director despite living in France and paying no UK tax.

Jonathan Isaby

Former Chief Executive, briefly taking the job in 2014.

Ruth Lea

The former chief economist at Lehman Brothers.

Susie Squire

Former campaign manager, became a special adviser to Conservative minister Iain Duncan Smith, and Conservative press chief in 2012.

Stephan Shakespeare

Also behind ConservativeHome website, has chaired meetings for the TPA.

Matthew Sinclair

Formerly chief executive (and a director of accountancy giant Deloitte), he later became an advisor to Prime Minister Liz Truss.

Funding

A 2009 Guardian investigation found that "a large part of its funds come from wealthy donors, many of whom are prominent supporters of the Conservative party." Individual supporters include Anthony Bamford of JCB, Tory and UKIP donor Stuart Wheeler, and construction company boss Malcolm McAlpine. In 2018, The Guardian reported that it had received $186,000 from secret American donors via an organisation called American Friends of the Taxpayers Alliance, and $100,000 from the Templeton foundation, which is based in the Bahamas and funds right-wing causes from the legacy of dead financier Sir John Templeton.

WhoFundsYou, which rates think tanks on their openness, rated its transparency as E, its lowest level, for the 2014 financial year, finding it did not declare its annual income, the names of donors, or the size of donations. SpinWatch also criticized its lack of transparency in 2012.

It has also received money from its charitable subsidiary, PERT, although that appears to be against Charity Commission rules. and would be hugely hypocritical, given that income directly from taxpayers in the form of gift-aid makes up a sizeable portion of the charities funding.

Campaigns

Showing an impressive grasp of PR, it called for the Conservative government elected in 2015 to cut pensioner benefits as soon as possible rather than near the next election in 2020, because by then, current old age pensioners would either be dead or would have forgotten about it.

It wants to replace the existing National Health Service funded by taxation with an insurance-based system.

The TPA seeks to end existing arrangements for funding the BBC, abolish all public-service television, and replace them with a system where viewers pay directly.

It wants to abolish air passenger duty and all other green taxes.

As well as campaigning in the UK for lower government spending, against school building, and against any form of wealth tax, it takes a strongly pro-Israel line, opposing "hate education" in Palestine.

In 2019, Private Eye suggested it had a new focus: promoting the business interests of chairman Andrew Allum. The TPA produced a report advocating the use of automation in the National Health Service, which happens to be something that Allum's company LEK Consulting will help you with. This might be pure coincidence, but the organisation still fails to reveal where its money comes from.

Rivals

An alternative group called The Other Taxpayers’ Alliance was set up to campaign against the Taxpayers' Alliance while trying to be more representative of British taxpayers, but it shut down in 2011.

See also

• Charter city