Osborne has announced a Mobile Hit Squad to clamp down on those people who are “mugging” taxpayers.
Actually, I agree with the clampdown, people should not claim what they are not entitled to, its not fair on everyone else and to the state. According to the government figures, this will save £1.5bn a year and its not to be sniffed at, and really for me, the point is not the money being saved, it is the main point about people taking what is not theirs. It is easy theft becuase it is seen as “faceless”, when it is anything but as its all our faces.
However, just who are cheating us out of our tax money? Yes there are the (in reality very few) people who badly abuse the welfare system (you can easily find out who they are by reading the Daily Mail), but if we are talking about people who take what they have not paid for, lets also look at those people who practise Tax avoidance. The bill of which is estimated at £25bn! (Yes, that is more than 16 times the amount in Benefit Fraud)) Im all for not paying for more than you have to, but you should be paying what you have to, rather than saving it all offshore or bending over backwards to slide through the loopholes. While the Government has made much noise that they will get harder on it, they are also getting rid of the staff who can investigate this. This is compounded when you add the estimate of £70bn in tax evasion (making a total of £95bn), then it really points where the Government should be looking for a good return.
To go back to the beginning, yes, Benefit Cheats should be cracked down on, from the moral viewpoint, however from an economic standpoint, this new “Hit Squad” should be looking for the Tax Evaders and Tax Avoiders. They will get a much greater return! To misquote part of a Jeffery Archer book, “it is better to go for those who can pay, but refuse to, rather than those who can’t!” (The Book is First among Equals)
Lets put it into context – by not paying their tax, Evader and Avoiders are just as guilty of using the benefits of the welfare state and not paying for it. They use the hospitals, GP services, Roads etc. that is paid for out of our Taxes and they are not paying for it!
Related Articles
- Benefit cheat hit squads planned (bbc.co.uk)
- Crackdown on benefit cheats planned (mirror.co.uk)
- Repeat cheats ‘will lose benefits’ (mirror.co.uk)
