Going after the economically disadvantaged!

fancythat

rafichagran Paying someone cash in hand is not illegal if done properly. As far as I know it has never been illegal. Not in the recent past anyway.

www.gov.uk/guidance/paying-employees-cash-in-hand-or-guaranteed-take-home-pay

Agreed if it is done properly, not to pay someone just to get more on their benefits, who have no intention yo declare it.

GagaJo

rafichagran, we hold such diametrically opposite opinions, there is no point us engaging in discussion.

My stance is that it is immoral for a developed country to expect people to live without adequate housing and to be unable to feed themselves. I will not budge from that position.

On that we agree. I just do not agree with you.

Your last paragraph is not wrong. Saying it is morally OK to commit benefit fraud is. It is a criminal offence.

PS Your last paragraph is not wrong, telling people it is morally right to commit benefit fraud is. Fraud is a criminal offence whoever does it.

Sorry for the duplication. I dud not think my answer was posted.

Well fraud is fraud however flawed our systems are….DWP seek out benefit fraud and HMRC tax fraud, both have big fraud departments. Benefit fraud can run into hundreds of thousands and that money needs to be redirected to those who genuinely need it. Sometimes visiting offers from DWP actually identify more need and assess and claimant can end up with more awards, this happened with my MiL who was investigated wrongly for benefit fraud, she was mistaken for her husband’s second wife.

Rafichagran I completely agree with your stance that our benefit system is flawed and many people living quite legally and legitimately on benefits cannot maintain a decent standard of living - the system is flawed BUT breaking the law doesn’t help and sadly a small proportion of benefit fraud stems from greed and it can run into very large sums of money

Germanshepherdsmum
OP seems to be suggesting that benefit fraud should be ignored in favour of prosecuting tax fraud. ‘Fewer cases … fewer families destroyed’. Fraud is fraud, whoever commits it, and all fraudsters should be punished. I suspect that benefit fraud is far easier to detect than tax fraud, which is often very sophisticated.

Agree with you 100%

I worked for the DWP and can assure you we don’t go out of our way chasing people eating a little extra each week to top up meagre Universal Credit - I have worked on cases where several “made up” children, all with disabilities were declared during lockdown - sadly the system was changed to protect the vulnerable for two years during COVID and fraud hit the roof - triggered by greed and seizing the opportunity. Also disability benefit has hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of crime committed and people have been imprisoned - in some individual cases the fraud has total in excess of £250,000 and this is tax payers money ! Fraud is fraud !

“Earning” not “eating” !!

Thank you Cossy. No-one can argue with your actual experience.

Thankyou Cossy

Allsorts

Tax avoidance is very much a crime, carries stiff penalties and imprisonment.

It is Tax_ Evasion_ that is illegal.

Cossy

I worked for the DWP and can assure you we don’t go out of our way chasing people eating a little extra each week to top up meagre Universal Credit - I have worked on cases where several “made up” children, all with disabilities were declared during lockdown - sadly the system was changed to protect the vulnerable for two years during COVID and fraud hit the roof - triggered by greed and seizing the opportunity. Also disability benefit has hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of crime committed and people have been imprisoned - in some individual cases the fraud has total in excess of £250,000 and this is tax payers money ! Fraud is fraud !

My neice also worked for them and she said it was heart breaking, the stories some people told. She couldn't continue working there, she said it was so hard and the targets were so high, there was no way to work there with compassion and to actually help people.

Obviously, both kinds of fraud should be prosecuted, but what is also needed is a consistent attempt both by the authorities involved and by us all, as members of the public, to change people's attitudes to fraud.

Quite honestly, as long as I can remember, decent, honest, hardworking people found it all right to cheat the Inland Revenue, smuggle more duty-free cigarettes than were allowed through customs when coming back from abroad, and to "fiddle their expenses account" just as long as they did not do any of the above to excess - meaning they risked being caught.

As a teenager, I had school-friends who dared each other to shop-lift. They felt that as long as they had the money to pay for the eye-liner or whatever it was they stole, it was all right.

None of this is "all right" and until and unless we reform the general public's attitude to fraud, it will not stop.

Changing attitudes is hard work, but it can, and has, been done successfully.

Think back to the 1950s: drinking and driving was illegal, but many people did it and boasted about it. In the 1960s and ¨70s a campaign to stop drunk driving was mounted in most countries and has greatly improved the situation, although unhappily it does still occur.

So attitudes can be changed, and the present prevalence of fraud committed by the poorest members of society, who at least have the excuse that they are at their wits' end, and by those who earn well, and should be contributing through their taxes to the benefit of society as a whole, cheat blantantly and will do so, until not only is the law enforced, but it becomes socially unacceptable to commit fraud or tax evasion.

One of the reasons why entertaining costs are generally not allowed for tax relief is because in the dim and distant past company directors and anyone else who had to entertain clients used to take their wives/girlfriends/mistresses out to lunch/dinner and claim for the meal as a business expense.

Cossy

I worked for the DWP and can assure you we don’t go out of our way chasing people eating a little extra each week to top up meagre Universal Credit - I have worked on cases where several “made up” children, all with disabilities were declared during lockdown - sadly the system was changed to protect the vulnerable for two years during COVID and fraud hit the roof - triggered by greed and seizing the opportunity. Also disability benefit has hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of crime committed and people have been imprisoned - in some individual cases the fraud has total in excess of £250,000 and this is tax payers money ! Fraud is fraud !

"Worked" is the word you use Cossy. This is a very recent drive so your experience is out of date.

It is still the case that, although every "fraud" should be followed up and appropriately dealt with, they are a very very small percentage of overall payments.

Germanshepherdsmum

Well said Oreo and rafichagran.
DaisyAnne, I suggest you read the OP again and consider what is said. It definitely suggests that fewer benefits frauds should be prosecuted. Fraud is fraud. Your final paragraph is disgraceful. Btw it’s serfs, not surfs.

GATHER AROUND, EVERYONE!

Germanshepherdsmum can correct the spelling/word use of someone with dyslexia who has not yet been able to transfer all her helpful software to her new computer! WOW!

Does anyone have the standard certificate we send out so she can hang it, with pride, on her wall?

CONGRATULATIONS GSM You should definitely be "something" of the week/month/year but who can say what?

Oh come on! Someone who is really struggling trying to get away with a bit extra is NOT the same as the super-wealthy applying every possible dodge to make even more millions. This is a moral issue not just a legal issue. Some laws are just wrong, or unfair. We all know 'fraud is fraud' - but who makes the laws and who applies them? We live in a grossly unfair society that is created and run by the very rich, who have control of just about everything. It's all very well for people on this site to say they have been 'desperate' - so have I, but I have not had to live in grinding poverty all my life, and if I had I might have resorted to 'fraud' myself. There are plenty of poor souls who cannot earn enough to keep themselves and their families in reasonable conditions and we have no right to be self-righteous if we've had the skills, the health and the energy to make money. Our society should be kinder - or should we be hanging people for sheep stealing once more?

undines

Oh come on! Someone who is really struggling trying to get away with a bit extra is NOT the same as the super-wealthy applying every possible dodge to make even more millions. This is a moral issue not just a legal issue. Some laws are just wrong, or unfair. We all know 'fraud is fraud' - but who makes the laws and who applies them? We live in a grossly unfair society that is created and run by the very rich, who have control of just about everything. It's all very well for people on this site to say they have been 'desperate' - so have I, but I have not had to live in grinding poverty all my life, and if I had I might have resorted to 'fraud' myself. There are plenty of poor souls who cannot earn enough to keep themselves and their families in reasonable conditions and we have no right to be self-righteous if we've had the skills, the health and the energy to make money. Our society should be kinder - or should we be hanging people for sheep stealing once more?

Exactly. But just like white South Africans under apartheid, people are easily able to hide behind what is legal but wrong and what is illegal but morally right.

Gagajo I totally agree with you. Why are we so exercised about the morals of the poor when the morals of the government and the system are so lacking? Nothing is going to change if we come out with platitudes like 'fraud is fraud'. Is stealing always stealing? How poor do you have to be before 'stealing' becomes right? And what should the penalty be? Stealing has always been stealing, fraud has always been fraud and not that long ago starving people were hanged for stealing in this country. It was 'the law' - so was it right? Thank goodness that law has been changed or we would have gibbets at the crossroads for benefit cheats. I cannot see that witch-hunts and tabloid outrage against some of the poorest making an extra buck are something that kind and intelligent people should be supporting. In my view we should be calling government to account and challenging the super-rich. But fat chance, especially while ordinary, respectable citizens (like those of us on this site) are more interested in finger-pointing than empathy and change for the better.

GagaJo

undines

Oh come on! Someone who is really struggling trying to get away with a bit extra is NOT the same as the super-wealthy applying every possible dodge to make even more millions. This is a moral issue not just a legal issue. Some laws are just wrong, or unfair. We all know 'fraud is fraud' - but who makes the laws and who applies them? We live in a grossly unfair society that is created and run by the very rich, who have control of just about everything. It's all very well for people on this site to say they have been 'desperate' - so have I, but I have not had to live in grinding poverty all my life, and if I had I might have resorted to 'fraud' myself. There are plenty of poor souls who cannot earn enough to keep themselves and their families in reasonable conditions and we have no right to be self-righteous if we've had the skills, the health and the energy to make money. Our society should be kinder - or should we be hanging people for sheep stealing once more?

Exactly. But just like white South Africans under apartheid, people are easily able to hide behind what is legal but wrong and what is illegal but morally right.

Well said, GagaJo. Another step in the road to an anti-democratic society.

The law should be upheld where it is fair and challenged where it isn't. The way "errors" are counted as one with the "fraud" is done to imply a higher fraud number and confuse the issue. Yet more Tory-style lies. If that is the Department's assessment, how can we know where the money would be best spent?

One thing is certain. If you underfund and under-employ, errors will happen. We can see here the same standard of running the country (or rather, not running it) that is everywhere from Conservative government after Conservative government.

The EU has been clamping down on tax evasion, I think that's why the Tories wanted out of the EU, since most of them are wealthy enough to loose money because of it.
www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/02/eu-agrees-to-force-multinationals-to-disclose-tax-piling-pressure-on-uk

spabbygirl

The EU has been clamping down on tax evasion, I think that's why the Tories wanted out of the EU, since most of them are wealthy enough to loose money because of it.
www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/02/eu-agrees-to-force-multinationals-to-disclose-tax-piling-pressure-on-uk

It’s a shame they didn’t clamp down on Jean Claude Juncker whe he was President and Finance minister for Luxembourg, therefore giving him the opportunity to give Amazon and others those obscene tax breaks.

www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/economy/20170529STO76260/juncker-don-t-measure-my-credibility-on-the-basis-of-my-tax-past

spabbygirl

The EU has been clamping down on tax evasion, I think that's why the Tories wanted out of the EU, since most of them are wealthy enough to loose money because of it.
www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/02/eu-agrees-to-force-multinationals-to-disclose-tax-piling-pressure-on-uk

You're right and many of us have been pointing this out for longer than I care to remember. Unfortunately too m any people get their info from the right wing, foreign owned media.