"Welfare and tax credit fraud and error costs the taxpayer £5.2bn a year." or the cost of more than 200 secondary schools or 150,000 nurses David Cameron stressed in an article for the Manchester Evening News, 10 August 2010

BUT…..
THE DEPARTMENT OF WORK AND PENSIONS ESTIMATES BENEFIT FRAUD COSTS £1bn A YEAR ie 0.7% OF TOTAL SPENDING

The taxman reckons fraudulent claims for child and working tax credits cost the public purse £460m in 2008-9 bringing the total still to about £1.5bn

The rest of the shock horror scare headline is accounted for by errors
The DWP says half of the £2.2bn benefit errors are made by claimants simply making a mistake in filling in the forms and half are made by officials or the 'system' i.e. mistakes in the computer

Nevertheless Cameron has declared war on benefit fraudsters in a bid to cut billions from the welfare bill and has won the approval of the tabloid headline-writers by calling in credit check companies to pursue benefit swindlers.
Has anyone actually costed this?

SO……..

The OFFICIAL figure for criminal defrauding the welfare system is £1bn

This compares with the cost to the public purse of illegal tax evasion of £15bn
(This figure of course does not include the unknown billions estimated to be lost to the public purse from tax avoidance)

A recent answer to a Parliamentary Question (from Katy Clark MP) revealed that:

'HM Revenue and Customs spent £633,284 (excluding VAT) on advertising for the purposes of preventing tax evasion last year. There was no expenditure in the previous two years'.

Katy Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department budgeted for advertising tackling benefit fraud in each of the last three financial years

Chris Grayling:
'Budgeted expenditure for advertising tackling benefit fraud

2007-08 £6.5 million
2008-09 £6.0 million
2009-10 £5.0 million
Note: Includes media costs, PR, production and research costs. It excludes VAT.'

SO.....
over three years tackling tax evasion of £15bn was worth just £633,000 but tackling benefit fraud of £1bn was worth £17.5 million.?

Perhaps the headline should be -

"Benefit fraud is 624 times more serious than tax evasion" as reported on the Tax Research UK Website



















But…..
Department of Work and Pensions estimates benefit fraud costs £1bn a year i.e. 0.7% of total spending

The taxman reckons fraudulent claims for child and working tax credits cost the public purse £460m in 2008-9 bringing the total still to about £1.5bn

The rest of the shock horror scare headline is accounted for by errors
The DWP says half of the £2.2bn benefit errors are made by claimants simply making a mistake in filling in the forms and half are made by officials or the 'system' i.e. mistakes in the computer

Nevertheless Cameron has declared war on benefit fraudsters in a bid to cut billions from the welfare bill and has won the approval of the tabloid headline-writers by calling in credit check companies to pursue benefit swindlers. Has anyone actually costed this?

SO……..

The OFFICIAL figure for criminal defrauding the welfare system is £1bn

This compares with the cost to the public purse of illegal tax evasion of £15bn
(This figure of course does not include the unknown billions estimated to be lost to the public purse from tax avoidance)

A recent answer to a Parliamentary Question (from Katy Clark MP) revealed that:

'HM Revenue and Customs spent £633,284 (excluding VAT) on advertising for the purposes of preventing tax evasion last year. There was no expenditure in the previous two years'.

Katy Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department budgeted for advertising tackling benefit fraud in each of the last three financial years

Chris Grayling:
Budgeted expenditure for advertising tackling benefit fraud

2007-08 £6.5 million
2008-09 £6.0 million
2009-10 £5.0 million
Note: Includes media costs, PR, production and research costs. It excludes VAT.

So over three years tackling tax evasion of £15bn was worth just £633,000 but tackling benefit fraud of £1bn was worth £17.5 million.?

Perhaps the headline should be -

"Benefit fraud is 624 times more serious than tax evasion" as reported on the Tax Research UK Website