Many people like to believe that welfare benefit fraud is small scale and not a factor even to consider when designing benefits. This is incorrect in both respects. Perhaps The Times's front page story today will begin to change people's minds:
THE identities of thousands of rail workers have been stolen by criminal gangs and used to steal millions of pounds from the Treasury, The Times has learnt. One in seven staff at Network Rail has been caught up in the tax credit fraud that has plunged the tax system into chaos and could turn out to be Britain’s biggest benefit scam.Last month it emerged that 13,000 Jobcentre workers had had their identities stolen and there are fears that other leading companies have also been targeted by the gangs. Suspicions are mounting that HM Revenue and Customs insiders are involved in the fraud.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Welfare benefits
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Interesting wording. Network Rail, Jobcentres, and "other" leading companies.
Those are leading companies? God help us.
Posted by: Andrew Duffin at March 30, 2006 01:20 PM
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And so we really do need a centralized database of everyone’s identity don’t we?
Posted by: Tim Worstall at January 19, 2006 11:15 AM