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T_i_B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-10-09 03:49 AM
Original message
Taxpayers' Alliance admits director doesn't pay British tax
So the RW media's favourite rent-a-quotes are also massive hypocrites.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/09/taxpayers-alliance-director-tax

The Taxpayers' Alliance, a campaign group that calls for tax and spending cuts and claims to represent the interests of taxpayers, has admitted one of its directors does not pay British tax.

The Guardian has learned that Alexander Heath, a director of the increasingly influential free market, rightwing lobby group, lives in a farmhouse in the Loire and has not paid British tax for years.

The admission, made by Matthew Elliott, the TPA's chief executive and founder, is potentially embarrassing for the Conservative party, which has close links to the group that claims to be "the guardian of taxpayers' money, the voice of taxpayers in the media and their representative at Westminster".

Senior Labour figures said the admission that a TPA director does not pay British tax "should ring alarm bells" about the group's influence on the debate on tax and spending. The group has also campaigned against green taxes, quangos and town hall pay.
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T_i_B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-10-09 04:22 AM
Response to Original message
1. And if you want to know more about these Tory astroturf merchants
Edited on Sat Oct-10-09 04:23 AM by T_i_B
Here is the Other Taxpayer's Alliance

http://www.taxpayersalliance.org/

The problem is that it isn't an alliance of ordinary taxpayers at all. It is an alliance of right-wing ideologues. Its academic advisory council is a who's who of the proponents of discredited Thatcherite policies, including Eamonn Butler and Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute, academics Patrick Minford and Kenneth Minogue, and former Institute of Directors policy head Ruth Lea.
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LeftishBrit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-10-09 09:37 AM
Response to Original message
2. Not surprised...
They would be better termed the Tax Avoiders' Alliance.
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non sociopath skin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-10-09 12:42 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Here's our old right-wing "progressive" buddy Bulldog trying to justify the unjustifiable ...
http://freebritannia.6.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=13001

The Anglofreepers are going to have to do a little better than that when a Cameroon government hits the buffers - as it almost certainly will as soon as the Great British Public realises who's going to be doing most of the sharing of the pain ...

:evilgrin:

The Skin
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T_i_B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Oct-12-09 02:05 AM
Response to Reply #3
6. Aw f**k FreeBritannia
The site is going down the pan in the exact same way that the original Free Britannia and Sterling Times did. A bunch of rabid American freepers have taken over the site thanks to Bulldog's weak moderation and the site has pretty much died on its arse. When you consider the ascendancy of the Tory party right now it shouldn't be the case that FreeBritannia is so dead but there ya go.

British Conservatives are much, much better off going to ConservativeHome or Iain Dale's Diary for their fix of political debate if you ask me.
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non sociopath skin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-28-09 06:08 AM
Response to Reply #6
8. You're almost right, of course (I think the US freepers are the symptom, not the disease) ...
... But I still find it interesting to see what the remaining clutch of Tory-cum-BNP/UKIP useful idiots are up to from time to time.

I'd be less worried if it was just the Iain Dales of this world that a struggling and unpopular Cameron government might have to placate.

The Skin
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Anarcho-Socialist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-10-09 08:04 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. You're right!
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fedsron2us Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-10-09 04:32 PM
Response to Original message
4. As an ex employee of the Inland Revenue
Edited on Sat Oct-10-09 04:38 PM by fedsron2us
I have long believed that records of tax payments and arrears owed by all UK citizens should be available to the public. Everyone would then find out that the people who whine most volubly about UK tax are usually those with the biggest arrears of unpaid debt or who use every avoidance method under the sun.
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T_i_B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-28-09 03:01 AM
Response to Original message
7. Another classic example of Taxpayer's alliance hypocrisy
Tory MP is ordered to pay £63,250 of dodgy expenses back to the taxpayer and all of a sudden the TaxPayer's Alliance don't like it. Evidently the TPA actually quite like wastful spending of pulic money of it's being done by a senior Conservative.

http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/4705446.MP_ordered_to_pay_back_more_than___60_000/

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Anarcho-Socialist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-28-09 07:46 AM
Response to Reply #7
9. Well yes
Spurious expense claims by senior Tory = "value for money" but when anyone else does it, then it's a scandal.
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