Who Funds The TaxPayer's Alliance?

One of the first rules of setting up a political lobby group is that you should have a name which defies opposition. Who in their right mind would be against "Citizens For Prosperity" or "The People's Democratic Society" or "Ministry of Peace" - why only a violent Communist! That's who!

It is this spirit that the "TaxPayers' Alliance" was named. We're all tax payers, aren't we? It's so wide a name as to be meaningless. Yet its name has connotations of inclusiveness which make it very hard to speak up against.

Much like the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is neither democratic nor popular - the TaxPayers' Alliance is not quite what it claims to be. It is a poorly disguised Conservative front which, it appears, exits to push a right-wing agenda.

So, who funds it? Despite being prolific users of Freedom of Information requests, the TPA is notoriously cagey about where their multi-million pound income comes from.

I decided to question Matthew Sinclair, the Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, over Twitter.

@mjhsinclair as you're "our" alliance - can we send you an FoI to see where your funding comes from?

— Terence Eden is on Mastodon (@edent) January 21, 2013

@edent It comes from donors who are entitled to their privacy.

— Matthew Sinclair (@mjhsinclair) January 21, 2013

@mjhsinclair so, shouldn't you be called "Alliance of Wealthy People (who may not be taxpayers)"?

— Terence Eden is on Mastodon (@edent) January 21, 2013

@edent How eloquent and incisive.

— Matthew Sinclair (@mjhsinclair) January 21, 2013

@mjhsinclair if they're private, how can I be sure that they you speak for taxpayers? Ronseal test is: do you accept money from tax exiles?

— Terence Eden is on Mastodon (@edent) January 21, 2013

Whereupon he started ignoring me. How rude!

We know that one of their directors was a tax exile living in France. Perhaps their fund also comes from offshore millionaires?

Despite what Matthew says elsewhere about having tens of thousands of ordinary supporters - there's no obvious way to give the TPA any money. Their sign up form won't take your credit card - nor will their Get Involved page.

Isn't that a bit odd? Every political campaign group I've ever seen is desperate for money from grass-roots activists. Yet the TPA is so flush with cash that they don't ask for any from ordinary people.

An investigation by the Guardian in 2009 showed that the TPA got most of their funding through Conservative business groups. And who funded those groups? Ah, little taxpayer - don't worry your head about such matters.

The USA has a particular problem with the corrupting influence of Super PACs - groups of wealthy and anonymous donors who try to influence elections by outspending their rivals. They are particularly corrosive because they are so anonymous - is Super PAC X campaigning for lower social security payouts because they're a group of thousands of disgruntled poor people aghast at receiving so much largesse - or are they one or two mad billionaires who want to see people suffer?

Even if the TPA are now only funded by people who pay tax in the UK, that's a damned broad church. It encompasses everyone from the billionaire to the job seeker - from the BNP to the hippy. Do all these people have the same agenda? Do they all want the same thing out of our government?

That's the question we need to ask the "TaxPayers' Alliance". Which taxpayers are they fighting for?