{"id":14373,"date":"2012-02-29T15:45:58","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T15:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=14373"},"modified":"2012-02-29T15:45:58","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T15:45:58","slug":"why-is-the-sun-prioritising-benefit-fraud-when-the-tax-gap-is-100-times-bigger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/02\/29\/why-is-the-sun-prioritising-benefit-fraud-when-the-tax-gap-is-100-times-bigger\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is the Sun prioritising benefit fraud when the tax gap is 100 times bigger?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left Foot Forward has blogged<\/a> that it would have been great to report today that:<\/p>\n

The Sun has today launched its campaign against tax evasion, vilifying those, usually the very richest in society, whose scams cost the taxpayer a total of\u00a0over \u00a315 billion a year (pdf<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But as they instead report:<\/span><\/p>\n

Hang on, sorry.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sun has today launched its campaign against benefit fraud, vilifying those, usually the very poorest in society, whose scams cost the taxpayer a total of over \u00a31 billion a year (pdf<\/a>).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tom Newton Dunn, the paper\u2019s political editor,\u00a0writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

THE SUN today calls on readers to help end the benefits frauds that cost the country a record \u00a31.2 BILLION last year.<\/em><\/p>\n

We urge Brits to shop the cheats stealing from honest taxpayers when the nation can least afford it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Campaigning Iain Duncan Smith last night backed The Sun\u2019s crusade to end the scandalous benefits fraud crippling the country\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

The Sun\u2019s first move is to hand over the evidence on Denise Knight, 44, who enjoyed a day on theme park white-knuckle rides despite claiming Disability Living Allowance for a bad back.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Department for Work and Pensions will investigate whether the mum from Llangadog, Carmarthenshire \u2013 featured on our front page yesterday \u2013 is still entitled to her \u00a350-a-week benefit.<\/em><\/p>\n

The decision of the Sun to hone in on benefit fraud is an odd one. If, as they suggest, the \u00a31.2 billion a year lost to deliberate fraud is \u2018crippling the country\u2019, then tax evasion, which costs the treasury over ten times that, must be outright killing it.<\/p>\n

The annual fraud indicator (pdf<\/a>) estimates a \u00a315 billion loss through tax fraud \u2014 deliberate underpayment of taxes.\u00a0And rather than their targets being people who are ill-placed to defend themselves against accusations, the archetypal tax avoider is\u00a0rich, above the law, and with full knowledge of what they are doing.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s the low end of the estimate. The Tax Justice Network\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that almost \u00a370 billion were lost to what they call the \u2018shadow economy\u2019.<\/p>\n

And when you count tax evasion \u2014 which includes everything from companies having PO box offices in the Cayman Islands to individuals, from leading businessmen to\u00a0top-tier politicians<\/a>, paying themselves as companies \u2014 the difference becomes staggering. The TJN estimate over \u00a3120 billion of taxes are undercollected through evasion and avoidance annually.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Of course, there may be a reason for their blind eye. As Left Foot Forward\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0last year:<\/p>\n

As far back as 1995, the Independent\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0in the previous ten years, Murdoch\u2019s News International had paid \u201cvirtually no tax\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

While corporation tax was set at 33 per cent, NI paid \u00a311.74m of its \u00a3979.4m profit\u00a0- just 1.2 per cent.<\/em><\/p>\n

As recently as 2009, News Corporation\u2019s proprietor was being\u00a0pursued<\/a>\u00a0by his homeland\u2019s government after failing to pay the correct rate of corporation tax, both in Australia and the United States.<\/em><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Australian Capital Territory (ACT) treasury officials\u00a0won a legal battle<\/a>,which awarded them A$77m for avoided taxes and duties.\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0in 2005 that Murdoch\u2019s family company was moved to Bermuda; the tax bill of A$1.2 billion had the potential to be avoided.<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, it may be Murdoch is unaware of his corporation\u2019s tax-shy practice given how little he knows about other\u00a0key operational issues at News International<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quite so.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reproduced with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left Foot Forward has blogged that it would have been great to report today that: The Sun has today launched its campaign against tax evasion,
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-gap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}