Whitehall targets poor more than super-rich, claims SNP
Robertson: 10 times as many staff seek benefits cheats as tax dodgers
THE UK Government has been accused of having 10 times more Whitehall staff “dealing often with the poorest in society abusing benefits than with the super-rich evading their taxes”.
Westminster SNP leader Angus Robertson made the claim as he challenged David Cameron during Commons question time when Jeremy Corbyn also clashed with the Prime Minister over cuts to HM Revenue and Customs staff targeting tax dodgers.
Mr Robertson pointed out how “3,250 DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) staff have been specifically investigating benefit fraud whilst only 300 HMRC staff have been systematically investigating tax evasion”.
The Moray MP asked: “Surely we should care equally about people abusing the tax system and those abusing the benefits system? Why has this Government had 10 times more staff dealing often with the poorest in society abusing benefits than with the super-rich evading their taxes?”
Mr Cameron said he would look carefully at the Nationalist MP’s statistics, but said they sounded “entirely bogus” and explained: “The predominant job of the DWP is to make sure that people receive their benefits. The predominant job of HMRC is to make sure people pay their taxes. The 26,000 people I spoke about earlier, all of them are making sure that people pay their taxes; the clue’s in the title.”
Later, HMRC branded Mr Robertson’s claim “complete nonsense” and said: “The suggestion that only 300 HMRC people are working against evasion by the wealthy is plain wrong.
“We have over 26,000 people working right across the range of our enforcement and compliance business focused on stopping tax evasion, avoidance and fraud; day in day out. The dedicated units referred to are important elements of that work but are far from the sum total,” added a spokesman.
But the SNP leader hit back, stressing how he had been referring specifically to the 300 staff in HMRC’s affluent compliance team, which targeted taxpayers with an annual income of more than £150,000 and wealth in the range £1m to £25m.
“Surely we should care equally about people abusing the tax system and those abusing the benefits system. David Cameron has said he will look at the figures; he also needs to ensure his Government is putting its full weight behind ending tax evasion,” added Mr Robertson.
During Commons exchanges, the Labour leader claimed Mr Cameron was cutting staff levels by 20 per cent and closing tax offices.
But the PM insisted the Government had invested £1 billion in HMRC since 2010 to improve tax collection and was hiring more staff in its compliance department.
“It’s not how much money you spend on an organisation, it’s about how many people you can actually have out there collecting the taxes and making sure the forms are properly filled in,” said Mr Cameron.
Mr Corbyn replied: “You are quite right, the number of people out there collecting taxes is important, therefore why have you laid off so many staff at HMRC who therefore cannot collect those taxes?”
Mr Cameron said no other government had done as much as the current administration to crack down on tax dodgers and said Britain would in June publish a full beneficial ownership register of companies.
However, he admitted overseas territories’ similar lists would not be made public. The PM said he did not want to force the crown dependencies to make their registers public because “some of them might have walked away” from the drive for transparency.