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Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780102981308 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 44
Book Description
HM Revenue & Customs has improved its approach to tackling error and fraud in tax credits but has not yet achieved a sustainable reduction in the level of losses. In 2009, HMRC announced a target to reduce error and fraud to 5 per cent by 2010-11, down from 9 per cent. HMRC missed this target. Error and fraud losses for 2010-11 were just over 8 per cent, amounting to almost £2.3 billion, around £850 million higher than if HMRC had achieved the target. HMRC has been innovative in how it tackles error and fraud, developing a wide range of activities to tackle specific types of risk and monitoring their effectiveness. HMRC believed it was on track to meets its target, but had overestimated the impact of its activities to tackle error and fraud. It estimated that it had prevented £1.4 billion of error and fraud in 2010-11, but has revised this to under £500 million. HMRC has not yet developed an effective response to stop error and fraud recurring after it has corrected a claim. It has also been less effective in tackling certain types of risk, such as the misreporting of hours worked by claimants. Despite HMRC increasing the number of checks to tackle error and fraud, there remain a substantial number of incorrect awards at the end of each year. In 2010-11, in the case of 1.4 million awards, claimants were paid more than they were entitled to
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780102981308 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 44
Book Description
HM Revenue & Customs has improved its approach to tackling error and fraud in tax credits but has not yet achieved a sustainable reduction in the level of losses. In 2009, HMRC announced a target to reduce error and fraud to 5 per cent by 2010-11, down from 9 per cent. HMRC missed this target. Error and fraud losses for 2010-11 were just over 8 per cent, amounting to almost £2.3 billion, around £850 million higher than if HMRC had achieved the target. HMRC has been innovative in how it tackles error and fraud, developing a wide range of activities to tackle specific types of risk and monitoring their effectiveness. HMRC believed it was on track to meets its target, but had overestimated the impact of its activities to tackle error and fraud. It estimated that it had prevented £1.4 billion of error and fraud in 2010-11, but has revised this to under £500 million. HMRC has not yet developed an effective response to stop error and fraud recurring after it has corrected a claim. It has also been less effective in tackling certain types of risk, such as the misreporting of hours worked by claimants. Despite HMRC increasing the number of checks to tackle error and fraud, there remain a substantial number of incorrect awards at the end of each year. In 2010-11, in the case of 1.4 million awards, claimants were paid more than they were entitled to
Author: Saul Schwartz Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000511812 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 142
Book Description
This edited collection brings together essays that explore personal debts to government. Intensive collection efforts by governments in need of revenue often cause hardship, whether it is the poor in the United States going to jail because of unpaid fines, low-income English people being evicted because they paid their council taxes but could then not pay their rent, or poor former students having tax refunds or social benefits taken by the government when they have defaulted on their student loans. Student loans, fines and fees arising from the justice system, benefit overpayments and unpaid taxes have all ballooned in the past decade, but no other volume comprehensively addresses the various ways in which governments have become privileged creditors, using their power to collect debts owed to them by their citizens. With each essay emphasizing a particular kind of debt to government, the book focuses on what happens when citizens cannot pay the debts they owe to their governments. Contributors offer pragmatic options to facilitate a movement to soften the stance of governments toward those who owe them money. The insights in this collection will be of relevance to students and academics in criminology, sociology, public policy, and economics, as well as policymakers and government officials interested in effecting change in this area.
Author: Great Britain. Treasury Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780101874724 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 126
Book Description
Despite the improvement in the public finances, this year's Autumn statement is fiscally neutral and locks in lower spending by reducing departmental budgets for 2014-15 and 2015-16 by 1.1% but excluding local government, Security & Intelligence Agencies and HMRC. The Government will: cap the Retail Prices Index in business rates to 2% in 2014-15 and extend the doubling of Small Business Rate Relief to April 2014; will provide a business rate discount of £1,000 in 2014-15 and 2014-16 for retail properties with a rateable value of up to £50,000 and a 50% discount from business rates for new occupants of previously empty retail premises for 18 months; abolish National Insurance Contributions for under 21 year olds on earnings up £813 per week; remove cap on higher education student numbers; announce further reforms to make the most of the UK's science base; introduce a new tax relief for shale gas, and increase support for employee ownership and the creative industries; improve the UK's infrastructure with the National Infrastructure Plan 2013; and take further action to increase housing supply and support home ownership. Fuel prices will be frozen and the impact of policies on energy bills will be reduced. The average increase in rail fares will capped. Married couples & civil partners will be allowed to transfer £1,000 of their income tax personal allowance to their spouse where neither is a higher rate taxpayer.
Author: Neville Harris Publisher: A&C Black ISBN: 1782252754 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
Approximately half of the total UK population are in receipt of one or more welfare benefits, giving rise to the largest single area of government expenditure. The law and structures of social security are highly complex, made more so by constant adjustments as government pursues its often conflicting economic, political and social policy objectives. This complexity is highly problematic. It contributes to errors in decision-making and to increased administrative costs and is seen as disempowering for citizens, thereby weakening enjoyment of a key social right. Current and previous administrations have committed to simplifying the benefits system. It is a specific objective of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, which provides for the introduction of Universal Credit in place of diverse benefits. However, it is unclear whether the reformed system will be either less complex legally or more accessible for citizens. This book seeks to explain how and why complexity in the modern welfare system has grown; to identify the different ways in which legal and associated administrative arrangements are classifiable as 'complex'; to discuss the effects of complexity on the system's administration and its wider implications for rights and the citizen-state relationship; and to consider the role that law can play in the simplification of schemes of welfare. While primarily focused on the UK welfare system it also provides analysis of relevant policies and experience in various other states.
Author: Lydia Morris Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP ISBN: 0228007585 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
Britain's coalition government of 2010–2015 ushered in an enduring age of austerity and a "moral mission" of welfare reform as part of a drive for deficit reduction. Stricter controls were applied to both domestic welfare and international migration and asylum, which were presented as two sides of the same coin. Policy in both areas has engaged a moral message of earned entitlement and invites a sociological approach that examines such policies in combination, alongside their underpinning moral economy. Exploring the idea of a moral economy – from its original focus on popular rebellion at the rising price of corn to more contemporary analysis of measures that seek to impose moral values from above – Lydia Morris examines Britain's reconfigured pattern of rights in the fields of domestic welfare and migration. Those in power have claimed that heightened conditions and sanctions for the benefit-dependent domestic population, both in and out of work, will promote labour market change and reduce demand for low-skilled migrant workers, often EU citizens, whose own access to benefits was curtailed prior to Brexit. Morris traces related political discourse through to the design and implementation of concrete policy measures and maps the diminished access to rights that has emerged, paying particular attention to the boundaries drawn in defining target groups, and the resistance this has provoked. The Moral Economy of Welfare and Migration considers the topology of the whole system to highlight cross-cutting devices of control that have far-reaching implications for how we are governed as a total population.
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780102951776 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 54
Book Description
This NAO report is a follow up to one issued in the 2002-03 session (HC 393, ISBN 9780102920635), Tackling Benefit Fraud. The report sets out some key facts, including: that the total benefit expenditure is £120 billion; the total number of recipients is 18 million; the total estimated fraud is £0.8 billion. In the 2006-07 period, £154 million was spent on six strategies to reduce fraud, with a Departmental estimate of £106 million of benefit overpayments identified as a result of fraud investigation and compliance activity. Also in the 2006-07 period, the Department recovered £22 million of the total £339 million outstanding fraud debt. Although the NAO has identified that fraud has fallen from an estimated £2 billion in 2001-02 to an estimated £0.8 billion in 2006-07, official error has risen in the same period from £1 billion to £1.9 billion. Tackling fraud is a key priority for the Department for Work and Pensions, and the report examines the main anti-fraud initiatives, recognising that: tackling benefit is inherently difficult; that the UK has levels of social security fraud and error which are similar to those of comparable countries; that the Department has made good progress in tackling fraud, but will find it increasingly difficult to secure further year on year reductions. The NAO has also set out a number of recommendations, including: that the Department's management information on fraud could be improved, with greater communication between the various departmental directorates responsible for counter-fraud work; that a review of the cost effectiveness of the Customer Compliance approach (which deals with lower risk cases of fraud) should be done; that a record of the outcomes of prosecution activities should be taken by case type to provide better Departmental information; that the Department must review recovery of overpayments in fraud cases and consider setting appropriate targets for recovery from customers who have committed fraud.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Treasury Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215561039 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 206
Book Description
This report identified serious concerns in a number of areas, including: unacceptable difficulties contacting HMRC by phone during peak periods; endemic delays in responding to post; and an increasing focus on online communication that may exclude those without reliable internet access. The Committee recognises that the Department performs a crucial role and operates under significant external pressures including continuing resource reductions, deficiencies in tax legislation and the legacy of the merger. It also acknowledges the commitment of management to tackling these problems and the dedication and professionalism of HMRC staff. However, it concluded that the Department has a difficult few years ahead of it, as it attempts to improve its service. The Committee makes recommendations in the following areas: Improving the service provided by contact centres; providing robust alternative to online contact; ensuring greater awareness of the impact of process changes on individuals and businesses; ensuring reductions in resources are managed in a way that is commensurate with the enabling IT and process improvements and minimises the loss of Departmental tax expertise; reviewing the division of responsibilities between HMRC and HM Treasury in relation to making tax policy, to ensure practical considerations are taken into account at the earliest possible stage; better targeting of letters that threaten serious consequences against individuals; having the National Audit Office externally audit preparations for Real-time Information, to ensure Ministers can be held accountable for progress against the Government's ambitious timetable; and examining how the Department can achieve better accountability around the settlement of large tax cases
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215556745 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 64
Book Description
There are around 30 different types of benefits and pensions, and £148 billion was paid out to 20 million people in 2009-10. The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that £2.2 billion of overpayments and £1.3 billion of underpayments were made in 2009-10 as a result of administrative errors by its staff and mistakes by customers. Efforts to tackle error have had little success and levels of error have remained constant since 2007. A joint HM Revenue and Customs and Department for Work and Pensions fraud and error strategy announced in October 2010, along with additional funding of £425 million over four years, is an opportunity to inject a new impetus. Importantly, the Department has not addressed underpayments, despite the hardship that benefit underpayments can create for people in need. Interventions to reduce error must be targeted where they are most likely to get the greatest return. Progress on reducing error requires a better understanding of where and why errors arise, and a greater focus on preventing errors occurring in the first place. The Department is not making use of all available sources of information to identify the reasons why staff make mistakes, where guidance and training efforts should be directed, and to identify which customers are most likely to make mistakes on their benefit claims. Wider welfare reforms have the potential to reduce errors in the long term by simplifying benefits administration, but waiting for the implementation of the Universal Credit is not an option.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215039910 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 72
Book Description
HM Revenue & Customs faces a huge challenge to resolve long-standing problems with the administration of PAYE and tax credits while making substantial reductions to its running costs. The Department needs to stabilise its administration of PAYE following the problems encountered after a new processing system was introduced in 2009. It also needs to recover a significant amount of outstanding tax credit debt while minimising the amount of new debt being accumulated. While £900 million extra has been allocated to tackle tax avoidance, at the same time, following the 2010 Spending Review, the Department is required to reduce its running costs by £1.6 billion over the next four years. The Department has made progress in improving PAYE administration since the Committee's last examination of this area in 2010. However, as a consequence of the Department's handling of the 2009 transition to the new PAYE Service, it has had to forgo up to £1.2 billion of income tax underpaid from 2004-05 to 2009-10. Under current plans, it will take until 2013 before all processing backlogs are cleared and the new PAYE Service is operating as intended. The Department needs to focus on improving data quality in particular to sustain progress in PAYE administration. Without a clear plan for reducing tax credit debt, the level of uncollected debt will continue to rise to an estimated £7.4 billion by 2014-15. The Department has been forced to acknowledge that much of this debt will never be recovered from tax credit claimants, and recently wrote off some £1.1 billion of debt dating back to the introduction of the scheme.
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office
Author: Saul Schwartz
Author: Great Britain. Treasury
Author: Neville Harris
Author: Lydia Morris
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Treasury Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Author: Paul Spicker