Benefit Fraud or Tax Dodgers? No prizes for guessing who are the biggest cheats around!

 

I was following up a forum thread about the Home Access Scheme on http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/free-laptop-grantsyesterday and getting seriously fed-up with all the comments suggesting or even stating that all the scheme claimants are layabout, druggie benefit-fraudsters!

The discussion disintegrated into a well “off-topic” rant about how benefit fraudsters are ruining the country.

The facts, not opinions, from The Treasury suggest otherwise. The big problem is, as always, with tax-dodgers.

Amplify’d from liberalconspiracy.org

1%: the real extent of benefit fraud

Work and pensions minister Chris Grayling was debating some policy wonk from Demos on the Today Programme over the announcement that credit checking agency Experian will be put on payment-by-results incentives to tackle benefit fraud.

Yet that 1% stat turns out to be entirely kosher, based as it is on government figures. That graphic is from here. The reality is that benefit fraud – while not morally commendable – is far, far less prevalent than anybody would reasonably expect, especially given the blanket media coverage of those who are caught out.

The £1bn a year it costs the taxpayer is little more than small change in comparison with the £850bn spent on the bank bailout. That  figure is one that everybody on the left should commit to memory ahead of the debates with the right that inevitably lie ahead.

Sunny adds: More importantly, Tax evasion costs Treasury 15 times more than benefit fraud

by Dave Osler

August 10, 2010 at 2:26 pmRead more at liberalconspiracy.org