Private companies checking benefit claimants

[Hammy02]

David Cameron is going to work with Experion to check that benefit claimants are not spending money that they should not have. I think it's a great idea. Why should taxpayers pay for someone who doesn't work to have Sky TV, a car or a huge TV? If they can afford these, either the benefits they are receiving are too high or they have another source of income. Surely benefits are to keep people out of poverty and that is all?

it is going to be very interesting...
lots of cash under matresses soon

So people who don't work are not allowed to have a car or a television?

WTF

I don't see how anyone on benefits could afford a car? I've been on benefits and watched every penny, saving vouchers for 50p off food etc. I don't have a car now as I still can't afford one despite working. It's not an essential part of life. People seem to have forgotten what benefits are for.

ABitBatty - I think the idea is that if benefit claimants can afford such things, then some might argue that their levels of benefit are too high.

One might argue that the money they used to buy said TV, SKY dish, car etc could/should have been spent on 'essentials' and/or been used more productively - books, education, improving one's mind perhaps?

Also, it might be argued that their levels of benefit be reduced so that they can't afford such items.

They will just buy them under the counter then. I don't see how taking people's names in Curry's is going to deter the hard-core claimants who do cheat the system.

The benefit system could stand some shaking up but IMO this is just pandering to all the Daily Mail type voters who bleat on about single mums and flat screen tellies.

I do hope that David Cameron applies as much effort in catching fraud at the top of the chain too. Apparently 7 times as much tax is avoided by the wealthy as is taken fraudulently by benefit claimants. I doubt he will though.

Hmm! If you are unemployed and in a rural area (as I once was - not unemployed but in a rural area) then it could be argued that without a car any hope of getting a job is scuppered. I am talking rural villages with little or no public transport. Even here in the south east there are roads and villages with NO bus service - often quite rural.

TV - most people have them now and they can be educational too (although when mine broke recently I did not miss it tbh).

It is hard to manage a car on benefits - when my DH was made redundant my income was deemed suffucient for us to manage - we could scarcely pay the mortgage never mind any car expenses. Most people on benefits are NOT driving round in brand new top of the range cars. They are driving old bangers and struggling with keeping them insured, taxed and in petrol - people like my parents on a pension

Also - if a family member buys things for people then so be it.

And many families I work with buy via catalogues - they pay over the odds to do so and sometimes cannot keep up repayments.

It's not all to do with benefits being "too high".

Personally I cannot see how anyone can manage on benefits - we certainly found it a nightmare at the time.

I wouldn't begrudge anyone a TV as it is the cheapest from of entertainment out there.

David Cameron should be working with Experian to ensure that nobody (working or otherwise) doesn't get given credit that can never be repaid. This is the main reason the economy has gone down the pan - irresponsible lending.

I couldn't afford to run my car while on maternity leave, so god knows how people can afford it on benefits!!

Anyway, it's a good thing the govt is investing a lot in cracking down on fraud. wasn't there something in the news about tax credit and housing benefit being claimed when it shouldnt be, costing the equivalent of about 150000 nurses per annum? Or 200 schools?

Yes but tax avoidance by the wealthy outstrips that by far violet.

When does it stop then? Will we extend the signing-on interview to a questionnaire detailing every penny spent? Do we start reducing payments because the claimant spends on clothes or cigarettes or alcohol or pot noodles? How on earth would that work?

I think any sort of tax avoidance should be cracked down on! They aren't mutually exclusive you know! I've never understood the 'argument' that because some wealthy people shaft the system, then we shouldn't worry about poorer people doing it. Get all the fuckers!

Theft is still theft whether you snatch someone's handbag for a tenner, or whether you steal ten thousand!

I simply don't see how a credit-check agency would be able to find benefit frauds using the information they have available. I would have thought that people moonlighting, for example, would work on a cash-in-hand basis rather than putting things through bank accounts. And don't police need warrants to check out criminals' bank accounts? OK, if someone is getting £70/week benefits and are regularly spending £200/week on credit cards then alarm bells would ring.... but would they really be using credit cards for expenditure?

So presumably they will clamp down on the sale of cigarettes and alcohol to those on benefits?

Not a bad idea imo.

smallwhite, you can call it prudence, other people might see it as avoiding your responsibility and expecting everyone else to pay your share. Someone has to pay taxes. Anything you avoid, everyone else has to pick up.

Fact is it's only the well off that can afford tax planning. Therefore they are shifting the burden onto those less well off who can't afford financial advisers.

Wonder if any researchers have done the maths and worked out how many taxes are lost through tax avoidance and how much VAT or basic rate income tax could be lowered if everyone paid what they owe?

Difference being Tippy that tax avoidance is legal benefit fraud isn't

Geek, not ruddy likely. The chancellor earns far too much from 'sin' taxes to really want to make much of an effort to limit peoples' spending. Last time I checked - when the ban on smoking in public places came in - duty on cigarettes raised a massive amount of money, about four times even the most loaded estimate of the costs of ill-health linked to smoking.

That's quite apart from the main issue, which is that it's none of your business what someone else spends their money on. People on benefits still pay taxes you know - they aren't exempt from VAT and duties, for instance.

I think it is basically big hairy bollock talk. I have been on benefits for a year (I'm a teacher, left a well paid job due to simultaneous relationship breakdown and diagnosis of a child with SN)

If I need something and it's desperate (e.g. moving into unfurnished house with basically no furniture) I use a relative's Littlewoods account, and pay it off over 52 weeks interest free (but more expensive than if I had saved and bought it.)

Flat screen telly is a total red herring. I have a third hand CRT telly - but if I didn't buy books/ Improving Toys for Preshus Childer then I probably could manage the repayments on a gigantatelly, but it isn't a priority for us. Similarly, I know lots of people on benefits who smoke, I don't think I could afford to - it's all about priorities.

Is this just Daily Wail speculation? Where would they draw the line? Is internet a misuse of benefit money? Sky TV? How the hell would you police what people buy in the supermarket, and why on earth should you? I don't see the point of this at all.

I think this is really disgusting. You can't tell people what they can spend their money on. When I was younger Students got housing benefit when at uni and if you were unemployed where i lived you got a free montly bus pass to go and look for work. I don't think you get any of that now.

I know people that earn MEGA bucks and live most of their time in another country so they don't have to pay high tax but still have enough money left to buy all their children a house outright, run a house in an affluent area and a house in South America that to me is more disgusting than someone on benefits using it to by a packet of fags or a 6 pack of beer - all which is heavily taxed anyway.

No, it's not just speculation. The Govt are cracking down on benefits being fraudulently claimed, which can only be a good thing. There will also be massive cuts - but that's another thread!

Tax avoidance is perfectly legal.

I believe each of us has a duty to ensure that we pay no more tax than is absolutely necessary - thereby maximising the amount of money left over for us to spend on ourselves and families as we see fit, instead of having it spent as politicians see fit.

Tax evasion is illegal and should certainly be pursued as vigorously as benefit fraud.

I dont get what 'they'think checks through experian would show?.......other than the fact that companies offer credit to people who have no way of paying it back?