Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

Article from the Mail: EXPAT benefit fraudsters cost Britons nearly £67million last year.
Scams include people going abroad but failing to declare their absence, failing to admit to owning property overseas and working while claiming sickness benefits.
Swindlers have even posed as dead relatives to claim benefits on their behalf.
A fraud-busting team from the Department for Work and Pensions has followed up more than 1,000 tip-offs from its bases in Madrid and Alicante. So far, it has reduced benefit fraud abroad by a third, down from £101million in three years.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘We are committed to reducing this further. These benefit swindlers are stealing money meant to support some of the most vulnerable people in society.’ One woman raked in more than £73,000 after failing to tell the authorities her mother had died. She impersonated her mother over the phone to ask for the payments to go directly to her and used the cash to fund her lifestyle in Portugal. She was jailed after returning to the UK.
A man claimed almost £1million in benefits by feigning disability and hiding his assets, using the money to build a property portfolio in Spain and Cardiff. He was also jailed.

What they don't tell you and what they don't want the man in the street to know and what they won't chase for fear of alienating a lot of their supporters is that each and every HM tax inspector can expect to recover this much in unpaid tax over two years from fraudsters not paying their dues - but that doesn't appeal to the national obsession with benefit fraudsters.... so they've decided to reduce the number of tax inspectors so they can go after what turns out to be the small-fry!

They should start at the top (high earners) and work down based on the law of diminishing returns but then they'd find the ballot box also has a law of diminishing returns!

Start with a real purpose in the Houses of Lords and Commons and prosecute, fully, the guilty. Jail them, remove their stipends and life-long pensions. Then start on Government departments, NGOs, charities etc. Then bankers, judiciary, industry, commerce, before concentrating on the pond life. Will that happen, rhetorical!

I really feel sorry for them - that is probably why I still pay HM Government Income tax even through I have not lived in the UK for the past eight years! Of course that is a benefit to the Government but to me it is just fraud!

"Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘We are committed to reducing this further. These benefit swindlers are stealing money meant to support some of the most vulnerable people in society - Of course, I don't really consider them vulnerable at all, so there's no chance that they will get anything.... They're getting too much already!’
- is/would be a little more accurate......