Saturday
Tax ResearchThe Taxpayer’s Alliance – out by a factor of 133
The Taxpayers’ Alliance may finally have over-reached themselves. They have just launched a cinema advert claiming the EU costs each UK citizen £2,000 per year. As Left Foot Forward show, the actual figure is £15 per year according to the EU Budget. That’s not a typo: the TPA are genuinely claiming that each UK taxpayer pays £1,985 more than the figure stated by the EU.
Left Foot Forward are asking people to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority here. It would be great if the TPA’s rather, shall we say, ‘relaxed’ approach to fiscal data got a formal rap but I think hitching themselves so closely and publicly to a cause beloved of the hard right reveals to everyone where they really stand. It is also worth noting that the advert (rather subliminally) includes a clip of Gordon Brown stating that the “UK benefits from EU membership” while an anxious taxpayer looks at the bill from the EU. And there was I believing the TPA didn’t get involved in party politics.
Of course, none of this will make any difference to their high profile in the right wing press but it does make it ever more difficult for reputable and unbiased media sources to use them as a neutral voice. As the Other Taxpayers’ Alliance pointed-out a couple of weeks ago, the BBC seem to be getting increasingly wary of the TPA.
It all points to a paradox in the TPA strategy: as their profile and their confidence grows, the more people (and journalists) become aware of who they really are. As a result, it becomes more difficult for them to pull off the trick of claiming to be the disinterested voice of the ordinary taxpayer. You can fool some of the people some of the time etc…
NB: this blog originally on the Touchstone blog by Adam Lent but too good to miss
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Nov 22, 2009
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The Taxpayers’ Alliance may finally have over-reached themselves.
Probably not. Assuming the post above to be correct, it is rather small beer compared to some real whoppers found on-line in the recent past.
For instance, not long ago there was a tract which proved to be so spectacularly wrong it is amazing it was ever published. The methodology of the tract was the absolute worst pablum to be found. Naturally the report based upon the hyper-flawed methodology was equally wrong on all accounts.
Still, the publication of this tract did not seem to hamper its authors access to the media. Perhaps TUC is familiar with the tract I am speaking of, “The Missing Billions”.
Ever heard of it?
Georges