By Kirsty Buchanan Deputy Political Editor, The Express http://express.lineone.net/news_detail.html?sku=973
BRUSSELS politicians have drawn up proposals to create a European income tax which would leave Britons shelling out £510 a year to the superstate. The rumbling row over the size of Britain’s rebate from Europe resurfaced as an influential committee of MEPs received recommendations for sweeping reforms to the Union’s current funding system. The Committee On Budgets is facing calls to scale back the current system in favour of a form of direct taxation when Britain’s rebate is re-negotiated in 2008. A report drawn up for the committee urges MEPs to “seriously consider the necessity of ensuring a direct and transparent link” between the Union’s resources and its citizens.It adds that, “in the search for such a link due considerationbe given to paying part of an identified direct tax” to the Union’s budget.
The recommendations, drawn up by the Committee On Regional Development, have been seized on by the UK Independence Party as evidence that Britons face the threat of a Brussels tax on their pay packets on top of ordinary tax. Currently the Treasury pays £9billion to the European Union and receives a rebate of up to £3billion annually. Our Euro funding is not sliced from earners’ income tax but is raised primarily on levies on imports into Britain and on VAT charged on most goods we buy. A portion is also taken from Britain’s own gross domestic product.
John Whittaker, Ukip MEP, warned that Britons would end up out of pocket if Brussels looked to raise revenue through direct taxes.“British taxpayers are already paying through the nose to fund the EU, the last thing they need is yet another tax,” he added.“The EU is not directly accountable to the people of this country. To give these unelected bureaucrats power over tax is a massive step in the wrongdirection. Most people see the EU wasting money left, right and centre. The last thing we need is them having more to pour down the drain.”
The committee’s paper accepts that while national contributions will remain an important source of the Union budget it proposes a revenue-raising system to reduce the importance of national contributions.Rebates which are “manifestly no longer justified” shouldbe abolished, the paper adds, while any new system should “reflect the relative prosperity of each member state and itsability to pay”.The paper suggests a direct tax could take the form of an income tax or a corporation tax.
The rebate was won by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 to make up for the huge farming subsidies enjoyed by France and Germany.But even with the rebate, Britain remains the second highest Union contributor out of an institution that will, from tomorrow, boast 27 member states.
In 2005, Tony Blair suggested Britain would be prepared to give up some of the £3billion rebate in return for cuts in German and French farm subsidies but French President Jacques Chirac refused to give way.
The Union budget is still dominated by farming payments which eat up £37.73billion, or 49 per cent of all spending.
Sunday, 31 December 2006
NOW EU WANTS A £510 INCOME TAX
Saturday, 23 December 2006
The end to red?
Friday, 22 December 2006
Say NO to ID cards
1. The simplistic argument that if one has nothing to hide then one has nothing to fear ignores the infringement of civil liberties that the imposition of Identity Cards would represent and totally overlooks the practical problems implicit in administering the system.
2. It is well known that any form of documentation from a Passport to a 100 Euro note is obtainable from counterfeiters and it is improbable that forged ID cards will not also be available, in spite of the use of ‘state of the art’ technology.
3. On the admission of no less a person than Patricia Hewitt, whilst Secretary of State for Trade & Industry, some 15 million National Insurance numbers cannot be accounted for. In the realms of Agriculture the British Cattle Movement Service lost 93,000 identities in one year alone (2003) in spite of having been established only 6 years previously in purpose built accommodation equipped with the very latest in computerised systems. Examples of where Government run any service efficiently and effectively are difficult to identify. That they will administer ID cards any more efficaciously is extremely doubtful.
4. Government claim that ID cards will help to stamp out illegal immigration, organised crime, terrorism, stolen identity and social security fraud. The reality is that the introduction of ID cards will impose a burden upon millions of bona fide law abiding British subjects (i.e. the majority) whilst failing to tackle the underlying problem which is that, for whatever reason, the army of civil servants that we are employing and who, in the main, are answerable to the Home Office and the Department of Health & Social Security are failing to discharge their functions in a satisfactory way. Instead of concentrating upon improving the performance of the departments for which it alone is responsible Government, as always, tries to shift the spotlight elsewhere, hence ID cards as the panacea for ills.
5. Even without ID cards it is practically inconceivable that a bona fide British subject would have difficulty establishing his or her identity (birth certificate, driving licence, passport, pension book, utility bill, National Insurance number, NHS number etc. etc.). On the other hand an illegal immigrant armed with a forged ID card would instantly acquire a legitimacy to which he was not entitled and which he would not otherwise have.
6. There is little or no evidence to demonstrate that in countries with ID cards the incidence of offences in the categories highlighted by Government are any less. Identity cards in both countries did nothing to prevent the 9/11 bombing of the Twin Towers being planned in Germany nor the explosions on passenger trains in Spain.
7. Inevitably there will be huge cost implications associated with the introduction of ID cards – figures in the region of £3bn centrally + £93 per person have been bandied about – and the view might reasonably be taken that this money would be better spent strengthening the forces of law and order rather than on a project of dubious benefit.
8. The strong suspicion remains that the real reason why the Home Secretary is pushing for ID cards, just as Michael Howard did whilst Home Secretary in the last Conservative government, is to satisfy the European Union.
9. By the creation of a National Database the power of the state over the individual subject is increased immeasurably.
Tel/Fax: 01746 861267 Email: mail@tfa.net Website: www.tfa.net
Thursday, 21 December 2006
NEW EU TAX TO BE IMPOSED ON THE UK
A row has developed over the European Union's plans to impose tax harmonisation.
The European Parliament wants power to be given to the EU to impose direct taxation in all member countries to end the squabbles over national contributions.
Currently, the majority of EU funding comes from government contributions but the Euro Parliament wants to force a new "revenue raising system" which would include a new EU tax and the end of national rebates.
UK Independence Party MEP John Whittaker said,
"British tax payers are already paying through the nose to fund the EU; the last thing they need is yet another tax.
"The EU is not directly accountable to the people of this country: to give these unelected bureaucrats power over tax is a massive step in the wrong direction.
"Most people see the EU wasting money left, right and centre. The last thing we need is them having more to pour down the drain. If they want fewer fights over national contributions, then maybe they should consider the way they spend the money.
"What we need in this country are tax cuts, not another tax to harm our competitiveness."
Do you have a question for your local councillor?
If you have a question for your local councillor, or your county councillor or your MP, email them through
www.writetothem.com
Please note that you will be unable to talk to your councillor on the West Midlands Regional Assembly because THEY ARE UNELECTED!!!!!!
Labour have taken away from you the right to vote for a level of government - a regional assembly imposed upon 8 areas of England by The European Union.
POST OFFICE CLOSURES - SOME FACTS
Under Article 88 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, signed by this Labour Government, the payment will have to cease, throwing thousands of post office staff out of work. The new confusing regulations on sizes and weights of letters and packages are directly imposed under the Postal Directive (97/67/EC), which also forces postal services into greater competition with firms such as the German state-owned DHL.
Yet Tony Blair, whose government has allowed this to happen, blames postal workers themselves for failing to attract greater business, all the time taking more and more services out of the post office (vehicle licences, pensions etc.).
Conservative and Lib/Dem politicians make much of this but won’t admit they too are powerless in the face of these EU rules.
Of course, there is something you can do about it. Join the UK Independence party to campaign for withdrawal from the EU. It will then be up to British people to decide what happens to British jobs, not unelected, unaccountable Brussels Bureaucrats.
You can join UKIP either online at www.ukip.org or Freephone 0800 587 6587
Stop the littering!
Walking through Castle Walk yesterday I was saddened to see a young mother, with two children, stop next to one of the many litter-bins along the street, take a cigarette out of a packet - which was then apparently empty - which she then threw on the floor!! She was standing NEXT to a litter-bin! Why don't people in Newcastle have pride in the Town?
Is it any wonder that children throw litter if they see and follow the example of their parents?
On a recent journey through France, we stopped at a services for a snack. We watched a French family eat a picnic; at the end of the meal, the three children of the family collected all the litter, walked across to the litter-bin, where they binned it. Why aren't children in Newcastle like that?
When I was a child, we had litter patrols. Each week a class had the responsibility for tidying all litter away from the playground, supervised by a teacher. Do schools do this nowadays?
Make you local councillor aware of the problems in your area.
Wednesday, 20 December 2006
Hi all
Can you all please sign the petition below calling on the government to abolish the Regional Assemblies imposed upon the UK by the EU.
Please forward this request on to everyone you may think will support it.http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/antiregions/
My petition reads:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to abolish the Regional Assemblies in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern IrelandWe disagree with the imposition of an un-elected level of local government on the citizens of the UK. The Regional Assemblies were brought about by the 1957 Treaty of Rome and do not have the support of the majority of British citizens. We disagree that council tax money is used to finance these un-elected bodies - there must be no taxation if there is no representation. These bodies are an attempt to destroy the UK and for the UK to be subsumed into a socialist federal state of Europe.
Thank you all for your support.
The letter below was emailed to P Farrelly (Labour MP for NUL) on 20 December 2006 - I await his reply and will post it here as soon as it comes - BUT DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH!
Dear Mr Farrelly,
As a constituent of Newcastle Under Lyme, may I ask you the following questions:
#1 Do you personally support Britain's withdrawal from the EU?
#2 If yes, are you willing to declare your support for EU withdrawal by joining the non-partisan BetterOffOut campaign as a declared supporter?
This issue is of vital importance to me, so I would really appreciate a direct Yes or No answer to my two questions.
Yours sincerely
