Experian will work with Gov to spot cheat's

[antijoke]

Why? This is taxpayers money that is getting wasted. I do not think £1.5 billion is an acceptable figure to be 'wasting' due to admin errors.

 

[Efour]

Its a very good point, id like to see what 1.5 billion pounds worth of admin errors are and what they entail, then have that fixed as well.

 

[Indy500]

Imagine what these guys could do if unleashed on the finance industry. Looks like class war to me, they're not poor enough so we'll go through their purchases speculatively without warrants...even the police don't have these powers without probable cause.

Wow, £1.6 billion, I mean that's only £848.4 billion less than guarantees and payments to banks that helped create the mess we're in, and continue to collect interest on the government debt.

Looking at symptoms doesn't fix the underlying problem. I suspect this will fall on deaf ears as usual though...

 

[Vonhelmet]

Wow, £1.6 billion, I mean that's only £848.4 billion less than guarantees and payments to banks that helped create the mess we're in, and continue to collect interest on the government debt.

The hypothetical difference being that the government has a chance of getting that £850billion back at some point.

 

[Gav]

please tell me the difference between tax avoidance and evasion, so I know whether to pay any further attention.

Tax Avoidance is legal whereas tax evasion is illegal

Tax avoidance is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage, to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. By contrast, tax evasion is the general term for efforts to not pay taxes by illegal means.

 

[mp260767]

i'm okay with the idea but have doubts on experian being involved, as credit checking agencies suck, i'll wait for the first person to get grief because of this taking people too court because the credit check info was wrong.

 

[muon]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10922261

HM Revenue and Customs, which administers tax credits and child benefits, says £2.1bn was lost to fraud or error - either by claimants or officials - in 2008-9.

...

The National Audit Office says that, of benefits administered by the Department for Work and Pensions, £3.2bn was overpaid as a result of fraud or errors - although it also says a further £1.3bn was underpaid.

So only £2.1bn is attributed to claimers if we are to take the worst case view that customer error = fraud (which it probably is in some cases).

 

[the shadow]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...s-10k-as-sexy-stripper.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
He realised she had the same name as a locally well-known topless model

 

[ElectroBlaster]

So in reality they can go to your bank and get into your accounts and have a good nosey?

So what if your not on the dole or claiming working tax? What is to stop these nosey sods looking anyway?

 

[Vonhelmet]

So in reality they can go to your bank and get into your accounts and have a good nosey?

So what if your not on the dole or claiming working tax? What is to stop these nosey sods looking anyway?

Admittedly we don't know a thing about how this will be implemented, but I would guess that there will be checks and balances in there somewhere to limit snooping.

 

[Ahleckz]

So in reality they can go to your bank and get into your accounts and have a good nosey?

So what if your not on the dole or claiming working tax? What is to stop these nosey sods looking anyway?

No, the credit reference agencies can only look at a snapshot of your balance one day a month. This is limited.
It's a bit of a headline grabber this story, because it's not really implementable as many benefit cheats who are fit for work and do work will work for cash in hand and thus there is no way of checking.
I urge you to listen to the section on Jeremy Vine earlier today dealing with this. It had one of the Managing Directors from one of the agencies (it wasn't the 'big 3' which gave him more scope to speak about issues). He explains the limitations and benefits of this system. There's also some good music played.

 

[bigredshark]

While the idea seems logical I'm not wild about using credit reference agencies - I've had the misfortune of trying to correct their mistakes before and it was hell, they seem to have absolutely no interest in what's actually true, if they can sell data to people they're happy, how accurate it is is a secondary consideration for them. How long before some lazy mistake by some private sector agency gets someone's benefits removed mistakenly - do you get to sue them for the mistake? I'm guessing (practically) not.

 

[ethan]

So in reality they can go to your bank and get into your accounts and have a good nosey?

So what if your not on the dole or claiming working tax? What is to stop these nosey sods looking anyway?

Shouldn't be allowed without justification. There are matters of personal privacy to be considered. What the hell are they to assume anyway? Millions of people buy trainers including disabled people but it doesn't mean you'll be out jogging. The same applies to sports clothing etc. You might buy an activity weekend for your family or as a gift. It will be useless for the majority of cases.

Edit: What's to stop anybody cheating using a relative to purchase things for them and them giving the relative the cash. I think this just amounts to popularist rubbish for all the difference it will make.