Tax Freedom Day 2008 Will Be 2 June [1]

For Sunday’s papers, Sunday 16 March 2008

• The UK's Tax Freedom Day – the day when the average Briton stops working for the Chancellor and starts working for themselves – will fall on 2 June in 2008. That means that for 155 days of the year, every penny earned by the average UK resident will be taken to support government expenditures.
  

• This assumes that the Chancellor has his growth forecasts right. If the economy grows more slowly than expected, taxes take a larger share of our income, and Tax Freedom Day comes later. Last year Tax Freedom Day was forecast for 1 June. But the economy did not live up to the government's predictions, and Tax Freedom Day did not actually come until 4 June.
  

• Things do not look set to improve. On the government's current predictions, Tax Freedom Day 2009 will not come until 5 June – the latest date yet under the Labour government.
  

• If you take public sector borrowing into account, Tax Freedom Day for 2008 will not arrive until 14 June!
  

The Adam Smith Institute has calculated Tax Freedom Day since 1991, and has figures going back to 1963 – when Tax Freedom Day was more than a month earlier, falling on 24 April. For more information and details of how Tax Freedom Day is calculated, visit http://www.adamsmith.org/tax-freedom-day/

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1995

The Guardian: Is Fairtrade doing more harm than good?

By John Vidal (March 8 2008)

The provocative rightwing Adam Smith Institute has "investigated" Fairtrade and found - shock! - it's doing more harm than good. The rational free market economists, nappy-trained on Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher, say the popular system of paying a bonus to producers in poor countries and guaranteeing them an above-market price for their produce, helps only a very small number of farmers, favours some growers over others, pays inefficient cooperative farms and discourages mechanisation. Even worse, they add, it allows UK supermarket chains to profit more from the higher price of Fairtrade goods than the farmers themselves.

This is seductive but misleading. In a perfect world, with no trade barriers or subsidies or future markets or middle men, these academic points would be telling. But the free-trade system, which the Adam Smith Institute prefers and in which western consumers and small farmers must work, is heavily skewed against the poor. At the last count nearly 2 billion farmers were unable to get a decent price for their goods, and were earning less than $2 a day, something which might also be called "unfair".

Fairtrade is not perfect. It was only ever an inspiring idea to try to channel more money to producers in developing countries, and many people hold their nose when they see Tesco and others retailers making more money out of selling a fairly traded chocolate bar than the family who might have spent days labouring in the field to produce it.

But the extra cash that goes to the cooperatives does help. Some groups use it to provide their old people with minimal pensions, others use it to pay for school fees or increase their pay. The point is the group members choose what they do with the extra money democratically. And nearly 7 million people - farmers, workers and their families - in 59 countries now benefit.

Tellingly, nobody is forced to join a Fairtrade organisation, or to buy such products, so you might think that free market advocates such as the Adam Smith Institute would be happy to see the expansion of individual choice that it provides.

Published by The Guardian here

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2063

Old Teaser

Think-Tank Backs Pay-As-You-Throw

Friday 7 March

According to a new report from the Adam Smith Institute, The Waste of Nations by Gordon Hector, pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) waste charges are the best way to encourage recycling and to boost profitable waste businesses.

The report stresses that PAYT must not be used as a 'dustbin tax' and that its introduction must be accompanied by a corresponding fall in council tax. Evidence from Holland, Ireland and Germany suggests that PAYT should not increase household bills and that, indeed, it may offer an opportunity to reduce them.

According to the report:

• The UK is lagging behind in recycling, sometimes dubbed the 'dustbin of Europe'.
  

• Recycling is good for the environment because it reduces the need for unpopular landfill sites and incinerators and can prompt emissions savings of millions of tonnes a year. It is good economics too, because it allows us to get value from things we would otherwise bury in the ground.
  

• Research from the US suggests a move to PAYT would reduce landfill by 16-17%, increase recycling by 50%, and lead to a source reduction in waste of around 16%.
  

• PAYT would encourage consumers to demand less unnecessary packaging and more recyclables from producers and retailers. Such consumer-led environmentalism is far more effective than government regulation.
  

The report also calls for the full liberalization of the refuse collection sector, so that private companies would have to compete for customers. Such a move would keep prices down and increase customer satisfaction. It would also lead to innovation and encourage refuse collectors to recycle more waste.

As the ASI's policy director, Tom Clougherty, says:

"The government's proposals for variable waste charging have run into widespread opposition because they are half-baked and ill thought out. The ASI's plan is entirely different. Liberalizing refuse collection and introducing pay-as-you-throw charging would dramatically increase recycling and help the environment, but it would also be an opportunity to reduce taxes, save money, and increase the quality of a vital service."

The final section of the report argues that recycling should be put on a commercial footing. Recycling facilities and providers should be allowed to merge and consolidate, and the free movement and trade of recyclables should be established. This would allow economies of scale to be established, bringing down the cost of recycling and recycled goods, and ensuring a market for commercially viable businesses in the long run.

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1993

ASI Welcomes Open Sale of the Tote

Wednesday March 5th 2008

The Adam Smith Institute (ASI) welcomes the news that the government is set to heed its advice and put state-owned betting company the Tote up for auction.
 
The Institute's director, Dr Eamonn Butler, said:
 
“The government has finally seen sense after exhausting the other options. Our complaint to the European Commission prevented the government selling the Tote cheaply to a group of well-off racing interests, at a cost of millions of pounds to taxpayers. Selling the Tote at an open auction will get the best possible deal for taxpayers – and might even help Alistair Darling to plug some of the black hole in the government's finances."

The government's original plan was to sell the Tote to the Racing Trust "for the good of racing". But the ASI argued that a discounted sale to a commercial consortium of racecourse owners would not realize the Tote’s true value, and so would damage taxpayers’ interests and distort the existing competitive market in betting.
 
The ASI submitted a formal complaint to the European Commission, arguing that a cut-price sale to racing interests contravened the EU’s competition rules, and constituted an illegal subsidy to industry, banned under the EU treaties.
 
The Commission twice agreed that there was merit in this case, ultimately forcing the government to abandon their plans.

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1994