To think this “crackdown” on benefit fraud is absolutely pathetic

[MissLou0]

We lose hundreds of billions from tax avoidance compared to 1 billion on benefit fraud and nothing is done about it, because those are the Tory donors. Michelle Mone just stole £28 million from taxpayers for her PPE scam, she’s not in trouble, and she of course also hides her hundreds of millions offshore.

We lose a small amount from benefit fraud, and as a result everyone who claims any sort of benefit including disability benefits banks are going to be monitored.

The graph below doesn’t even scratch the surface of how much is lost to tax avoidance. For example Rupert Murdoch is worth £17 billion and he hasn’t paid tax in years, personal tax or on his businesses. And he’s ONE person. These people are not targeted yet the most desperate and vulnerable are.

This is completely ignored by the media as the majority of newspaper owners are hiding their money offshore.

I’m in a situation where I don’t need to claim any benefits but I have family who are disabled who have had to fight for even the tiniest amount to live on, and they are now having to deal with this invasion of privacy which will make not even 0.000001% of what cracking down on tax avoidance would.

It should also be remembered that the sums touted for benefit fraud are very often actually for fraud and error with zero clarity of how much is outright error on DWP’s part, how much is error because of over complicated systems and how much is actual outright fraud.

I think the issue with benefit fraud is its an easy win. Most of us know someone claiming when they shouldnt. I know 3 people in one family claiming pip, 1 works and the other 2 could work but dont bother. Its pathetic but its in my face. If its the tax avoidance its not so obvious as you cant see a persons tax affairs so easily.

Very well put!

I am not disputing the figures at all.
Living in a community as I did back in the 70s and 80s where benefit fraud and 'cash in hand' work was common it was corrosive. Women claiming benefit for another child, they borrowed their sisters toddler for a visit to claim.
The difference between honest and dishonest became blurred. Children were almost being taught by their family who it is permissible to steal from.

It can be avoided completely if it's done right

but I have family who are disabled who have had to fight for even the tiniest amount to live on

I can’t stand benefit fraud for this reason.

So many people have to fight to get what they’re entitled to, which is often a pittance and this is because so many people take the piss.

I will never understand why MN is so comfortable with benefit fraud.

Every thread about it is met with support from so many MNers - someone renting their council house as an air B&B, claiming to be a single parent but living with a partner and both working FT or pretending to have or their children to have an illness just to get benefits.

It honestly makes me think why am I not committing benefit fraud, if everyone else seems to and those that aren’t on benefits thinks it ok.

The reason I don’t is because obviously it’s morally wrong but also it’s these people who make it difficult for the rest of us.

The people who genuinely need these benefits struggle to get it or get the tiniest amount, because of the idiots who take the mick.

We should absolutely start at the top and go for multi million pound businesses first but I also agree with cracking down on benefit fraud too.

That’s insane!

And that’s on top of their already high wages!

No wonder they have no clue what it’s like living in the real world.

There's a hard core of the population who hate seeing someone getting something they're not. You just have to see some of the posts on MN where people always have examples of someone living the high life off the back of the taxpayer or believing that certain groups don't deserve what they get.

What the government say and what they do in practice is different. Remember there was going to be guidance about trans issues in schools by last Easter, bully dogs banned by the end of the year, for example.

Theoretically, I disagree with benefit fraud and people getting something they shouldn’t while I work and get nothing.

However, if this change makes it harder for the vast majority people who do deserve them then I can’t see the point. Also, benefits are so small that even those few who claim when they aren’t entitled are not exactly living the high life.

I am more concerned by the amount of unclaimed benefit. They need to overhaul the system and make it easier and more straightforward. That money could be helping people live a better life.

along with the changes being proposed to eligibility for ill health/disability benefit

@CherryMyBrandy , may I ask what the proposed changes are? Many thanks.

How do you know they could work?

PIP is not means-tested or dependent on whether you work - it’s about what you can
or can’t do.

I wish people would find it as enraging that so much money is wasted on utter needless appeals. those figures are always quietly kept away from any discussions.

The nearest tribunal centre here has 15 rooms. Every day there is one lawyer and one doctor in every room. Many have a welfare rights person as well. All independent of the DWP and at a princely cost. It is so busy that it takes almost a year to get an appointment.

Then 7 out of 10 PIP claimants win their appeals despite providing no new evidence.

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/7-10-pip-appeals-won-same-evidence-dwp-already-held

Multiply those costs with cities all over the country and the figures must be absolutely massive.

If the other 2 worked they’d still be entitled to PIP as it’s not an out of work benefit so your point is a bit odd?

So it’s morally correct OK to live in a country, make money in that country, benefit from the state run services in that country but deliberately use tax loops (e.g. creating off shore companies) to avoid paying your fair share?

I agree. This government is hellbent on targeting those that they perceive to be beneath them. The scale of aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion is astronomical in comparison to that of benefit fraud, yet nothing ever gets done about that.
The tax dodging owners of the right wing papers are more than happy to play along, but just wish that the general public wouldn’t fall for it. Divide and rule innit!

Anyone receiving certain benefits or top-ups will, allegedly, have their back accounts checked monthly.

https://metro.co.uk/2023/11/06/benefits-claimants-to-have-bank-accounts-checked-monthly-in-crackdown-19779875/

Benefit fraud is illegal, whilst I get your sentiment, the number of people I've known who have worked cash in hand whilst claiming benefits, pretended their partner lived at their mums or worst of all pretending your disability is worse than it is is shockingly high from where I used to live. Benefits need to be fair, and the system for things like pip, which is an in work benefit needs to be better administered but that still doesn't mean someone (my old neighbour) should be allowed to pretend they couldn't work due to their back yet did a couple of physical hobbies and drove a minicab on the sly.

Is anyone comfortable with benefit fraud? I think fraud of any kind isn’t ok. Both tax fraud and benefit fraud mean less in our shared pot to pay for state run services. What I object to, is putting people through an awful process just to get their basic needs met. Just because a small minority of people claiming benefits scam the system, you shouldn’t tar everybody with the same brush. It’s dog whistle politics and trying to keep the rabid DM reading voters on-side.

There would be much greater increase in the shared pot to fund services if wealth were taxed properly. Lots of very wealthy people agree.

I had to rely on benefits for a short time in my 20s. It was humiliating enough without being immediately viewed as a fraudster. It helped me to stick with studying and I’m now a professional with an above average salary.

We need both better solutions for tax fraud and tax dodging, better solutions for actual benefit fraud and we need to tax wealth properly - so that we can find services properly and reduce the disgusting level of inequality in this country that creates a vicious cycle of the wealthy getting more and more of the resource and those with the least getting less and less.

Difficult to change how the world has evolved. The super rich can live where they want as countries welcome them on special tax deals, like the non-doms Starmer hopes to tax to pay for everything. (It won’t).

They have property owned in offshore trusts and companies, how do you propose shutting those down, when they can be moved from, say Jersey to another tax haven in the flick of a button?

My friends employer has moved to Switzerland with his private jet because he, like others thinks Labour will target him.

I do not think the government should ever be given the power to routinely check bank accounts. That's a slippery slope.

My friend is a benefit fraud investigator for the DWP and the figures that make up the amount that the taxpayer loses because of benefit fraud is only from the amount of people that they actually catch. There's loads more people doing it that are not caught out, I know a lot of people in my area that are claiming for things they shouldn't but until they are caught they won't be a statistic.

Fraud is fraud regardless if it's tax, benefits or inheritance etc we all pay for it in the long run.

A small amount of privacy being invaded isn’t much in exchange for money to live on.

It’s not a small invasion of privacy, it’s a breach of human rights applied to everyone who claims to catch the minority of people who claim fraudulently or who have made an honest mistake. How long before they then start deciding what people can spend the paltry sum they get in benefits?

People don’t loose fundamental human rights because they are out of work, or have a disability or care for someone else. If you’re happy for their human rights to be set aside, I take it you’d be equally happy for your own to be compromised at the whim of the government.

PP who are saying benefit fraud is illegal and needs to be dealt with are missing the point. Of course it’s not good, and ideally wouldn’t be happening, no one is disputing that; but as a proportion of the money lost by the government it’s tiny, and less than what the government gains in unclaimed benefits. So it’s totally disproportionate and unfair to put ALL benefit claimants under draconian measures, when there are far far larger sums of money that the government could be chasing that it chooses not to.