I thought the astonishing average £248,780 cost of each tax avoidance case identified as outstanding at H M Revenue & Customs by the National Audit Office should be benchmarked for comparison. The total outstanding is £10.2 billion.
So I've compared it with the average cost of each local authority housing can council tax fraud case identified in a report by the Audit Commission, also published this month. They found fraud of £117 million spread over 54,000 cases in 2011/12. That's an average cost of £2,166 each. I suspect that is typical of all benefit frauds.
Let's plot this:
Now which one of those two requires more attention and publicity, do you think?
So why do we always here about benefit fraud?
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Because some can do what they like, but others do what they’re told ?
Our politicians are of the “do as they like” clan, as proven by the continuing expenses-gate saga.
They will never clamp-down on tax evasion because they are of the same mind. Laws are such a little-people thing, doncha think ?
Tax avoidance is a legal strategy though? That’s why people have DOTAS numbers.
Also what do you mean by ‘cost’? Is this the cost of pursuing the case, or the amount being pursued that is not recovered or what?
Not a very clear post this one.
If you’re moaning about tax avoidance being ‘immoral’ or some such other badly defined sentiment , why not focus your efforts on getting legislation to make all current forms to tax avoidance illegal?
You may have noticed I am doing just that
The General Anti-Tax Avoidance Principle Bill before parliament now was written by me
I walk my talk
Can’t say how much I admire your work. You and colleagues at Tax Justice network have put this issue on the front page where it belongs. If the bill is defeated we will have confirmation that we are not all in this together – if there was any doubt before!
Oh and you’ve spelled ‘hear’ wrongly.
@Jack Small, comments on typos is ridiculous when there’s important issues to being discussed. Richard writes 1000’s of words a year and small mistakes are always going to creep through. On the important issues, I am convinced that what he says will be totally vindictive. Naysayers will come to be seen as flat-earthers to his Galileo.
It’s about 500,000 words a year on here….
A good sized book every three months
Richard,
You’ll delete this no doubt – I understand your campaigning again tax avoidance – close loopholes, shame companies, and so on. But at the end of the day, by definition, avoidance is legal. Any avoidance that isn’t found legal, will be evasion.
By definition, fraud is illegal so of course it will be chased up. Dividing it just to housing benefit fraud, then per case, surely just is fudging the figures.
Wouldn’t you be better off comparing all benefit fraud per case to say, all evasion by tradesmen. That’s small per case but likely a large sum overall and definitely illegal. Is that worked on by HMRC with the same vigor?
Avoidance is getting round the law
That is not legal
Got your facts right
Tax avoidance is illegal?
It is getting round the law
That’s not legal
It is not illegal either
But it does leave it open to attack
Noel & Chas: it’s unlegal. Richard perhaps a Venn diagram would be useful for the hard of thinking.
Interesting idea
There was a very good ‘Thinking Allowed’ series on the disparity between benefit fraud prosecutions and tax ‘settlements’ in cases of fraud. Presented by Laurie Taylor on Radio 4 and still available to download.
It would, however, be fairer to compare the costs of DWP, housing AND council tax frauds with tax avoidance figures.
Given that most of the press is owned by right wing media barons who actively practice tax avoidance and who dislike the welfare state and quite possibly want to see it abolished, this is hardly surprising.
And of course it suits this government’s agenda to constantly attack the less well off while doing far less to prevent tax evasion and tax avoidance by the better off even though this costs the country far more.
“So why do we always here about benefit fraud?”
Richard, because tax avoidance is not on the agenda…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/20/scrounger-stigma-poor-people-benefits
“Big Brother-style National Identity card by the back door.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/arms-giant-and-credit-firm-sign-up-to-no-10-online-identity-scheme-8315960.html
Whatever next ?, microchipping people so that you can find them using GPS ?.
“It is getting round the law
That’s not legal
It is not illegal either”
Something can be either legal or illegal, not both. Tax avoidance is not illegal. Even your bill will not make avoidance illegal, it will simply allow HMRC to ignore steps inserted in a transaction.
There is a third category: not sanctioned by the law
Only the wilfully blind ignore it
It depends on one’s view of government.
Do we sit around and wait for government to “allow” us to do something -or- do we see what government says in terms of “nope, you can’t do that” and go about doing everything else?
Government restricts in certain areas, everything else is fair game.
Simple.
Well in tax it is not fair game
For all those who insist on banging the “Avoidance is legal” drum… please stop. Just because it’s legal, doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. A child can see that.
Think about it this way – if all avoidance was legal and therefore acceptable, on what basis would or could the courts ever find for HMRC? And yet they do… much more often than not.
Come up with an explanation for that and I’ll give your opinions some credence. Until then, just stop it.
Seriously, it’s embarrassing.
Gee,
I am sure many would agree with you in regards to drugs, gambling, abortion, any number of “social” items which are legal but not “acceptable” (to some).
Whose morality are we going to be enforcing, or is it a sliding scale/guessing game?
Chas, obviously (a la Thatcher) there’s no such thing as society – we’re all just individuals and families.
Not to mention insurance fraud:
http://www.abi.org.uk/Publications/63750.pdf
a very common fraud..
And, from past experience, VAT fraud.
Both running into the billions.
As opposed to the 0.8% of benefit fraud.
But everyone likes to blame someone else for the problems..