Benefit Fraud

[tjwmason]

I just saw one of the adverts from the D.W.P. about tracking down 'benefit cheats'.

I hadn't seen one for a while and so was shocked again at the extremely 'big brother' style of the light coming down from the sky.

Am I alone in thinking that they're even further than the most extreme neo-liberal Thatcherite conservatives would tend to go?

[Taxloss]

1. It makes me think of Captain Scarlet.

"This is the voice of the Mysterons ..."

And yes, it's pathetic the amount spent on it when you consider how piddling benefit fraud is compared to the amount swindled from the government by the rich and by corporations. A real scandal.

[tjwmason]

2. LOL

That really is too true :rofl:

But the Daily Mail leader page is hardly going to start complaining about rich corporations.....

[bennywhale]

4. The Daily Mail Readership

on average sends their kids to Sixth Form more than a family on benefits, their kids to University more than a family on benefits and they visit the GP more as a family than a similar family on benefits. The middle class are the biggest users of the Welfare state. FACT

Next time they want to demonise someone i'm going to write a letter calling them all education and health scroungers.

And i think neurotic woman from Surrey who visit the doctor once a week for no good reason, or just "feeling a bit flushed" should be jailed for theft from us "decent" and "hard working" families.

[Taxloss]

8. DAMN RIGHT

You should see the fact in another thread about how the estimated total of benefit "fraud" each year equals the total amount of unclaimed benefits each year - and I can add that's nothing on the £18bn corporations swindle out of us each year. Not to mention the rich.

[fedsron2us]

3. Benefit fraud and tax evasion. Some figures

Benefit fraud estimated at £ 3 billion pa

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4185195.stm

VAT fraud and error estimated at £ 11.9 billion pa

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3527643.stm

Income tax fraud has never been fully quantified by government but an EU report from 1998 gave a figure of undeclared income on the region of £50-100 billion pound per per annum. This gives a tax loss of £10-20 billion.

http://www.tuc.org.uk/welfare/tuc-5550-f0.cfm

The H M Revenue and Customs (formerly the Inland Revenue) only conducts about 60 tax fraud prosecutions a year.

http://www.accountancyage.com/accountancyage/news/2032284/revenue-attacked-tax-fraud-efforts

Amount of unclaimed benefit is approximately £ 3 billion

http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialexclusion/story/0,11499,1455327,00.html

It appears that there is one law for fraud by the rich and another for fraud by the poor.

[non sociopath skin]

5. Ah, but you're not comparing like with like, feds.

A poor man's fraud is a rich man's creative accountancy. :banghead:

The Skin

[Vladimir]

7. Nice figures

my brain will have fun with those next time this inane issue of scroungers comes up...

[mr blur]

6. I get Disabled Living Allowance

and Income Support and one of our kids is also classed as disabled so we have to go to the Benefits office from time to time. The posters urging people to inform on / turn in people you might know "defrauding" the system are extremely nasty.