Homeless Dept (Enfield) Video

gazter

BigAunty wrote: »

The supply/demand ratio for housing has been out of step with population and household growth for decades, perhaps approaching 30 or 40 years of neglect?.

The only way to have prevented the doubling in the housing benefit bill over the past decade and the insecurity of tenure and rates of homelessness would have been to have built enough properties to have prevented rental cost inflation.

Other less workable or less popular options include massive immigration cuts (including withdrawing from the EU), the imposition of rent controls or increase in taxation to reflect that fact that many households can now never earn enough to pay the rent and raise their children due to high costs and low salaries.

Successive governments have been too timid to launch a proper housebuilding or social housing programme or increase taxation to protect benefit claimants.

There is so little social housing and so much demand for it from homeless people that it no longer can meet its role as housing those in need. The law had to change a few years ago in England to reflect the fact that councils cannot accommodate even high priority homeless (those with disabilities and dependents) so can now discharge their statutory obligations to the homeless with a single offer of a 1 year private tenancy.

The numbers of people declared homeless is at levels so low they've not been seen for decades.

Pixie5740

James_B. wrote: »

People who complain about tax avoidance seem to strangely only care about other people's tax avoidance, and often think that their own is just fine.

For example, people will buy alcohol or cigarettes at duty-free shops when travelling. They'll put money into an ISA, or a pension, and they'll not pay any income tax on the first £10,000 of their earnings.

Despite millions of people doing this, and the sums adding up to a very large amount, this is all apparently "different", and it's some other people whose tax avoidance is the real issue.

For some reason, someone legitimately ensuring that they pay the right tax is wrong, whereas someone taking benefits to which they are entitled is not. I cant understand where this double-standard comes from, or why they will try to deflect valid criticism about illegal benefit fraud onto completely legal tax avoidance.

There's a world of difference between someone buying a litre of vodka in the airport duty free and having an ISA, to someone such as Gary Barlow or Jimmy Carr using the tax avoidance schemes in Jersey and the Isle of Man. I suppose that's why HMRC are cracking down on those schemes.

Likewise, we all know that companies such as Amazon and Starbucks aren't doing anything illegal, in fact the way they arrange their taxes is good for their shareholders, but that doesn't make it right.

benjus

James_B. wrote: »

For example, people will buy alcohol or cigarettes at duty-free shops when travelling. They'll put money into an ISA, or a pension, and they'll not pay any income tax on the first £10,000 of their earnings.

None of those things are "tax avoidance" in the way the phrase is normally used.

princeofpounds

That £1.2 billion is chicken feed in comparison with the amount lost to tax evasion and tax avoidance.

It is. I believe the figure is actually currently nearer £2bn now actually, but it's still quite small in the scheme of things.

I've always been suspicious about that figure to be honest.

My suspicion focuses on:

a) the measurement systems that are used
b) the definitions that are used. Specifically what is included or excluded (esp. LHA, black market employment and undeclared co-habitation)
c) how the loss is calculated

I've never really investigated it before, and seeing it here prompted me to go looking around a bit on the web.

Googling around I found a really interesting academic study (including 'meta-analysis' of several studies over the years) of the topic.

http://core.kmi.open.ac.uk/download/pdf/43738.pdf

Alas it is from 2002, so it can't inform too much about about the current situation, but there are certain interesting points that were consistent throughout the 90s and early 00s which bear summarising:

- ~10% of all Income Support, DLA and JSA applications are fradulent. (South and East London 15% are fradulent!!!)

- ~5% of child benefit payments and care allowance applications are fradulent.

- The rate of fraud is diluted by pensioner income support claims, where only 2% are fradulent. (NB these are internal government figures)

Those numbers; 5-15% fradulent, are much more in tune with what people are thinking about when it comes to benefits cheats.

BigAunty

I haven't watched the video from the link that the OP provided.

However, I thought I'd seen an article recently which indicated that Enfield council was very progressive compared to many and had started to buy private properties to add to their stock to help house the homeless/in need which is a very rare step indeed.

Like others, I am very sympathetic to the fact that very few private landlords are welcoming to benefit claimants and I also believe that the Local Housing Allowance, allegedly set to make the bottom third of local rents available, is also out of touch with the market and a far higher number of properties are dearer than the LHA limit.

Also like others, I am not always fully sympathetic to those affected by the changes to LHA and the benefit cap that force them to move to cheaper areas.

The articles I've read that interview some of the claimants affected make them sound like they are being shunted to Mars rather than moving a zone or two in London or the next county or so.

The types of inconvenience they cite (having to change their kids schools, the GP, away from their friends and relatives, away from where they were born or have always lived) is no different from that experienced by many people as routine when they move to take up a new job, go to University, or move in with a partner away from their home town or downsize when they retire, for example.

Of course, I realise they are compelled to do this rather than initiating the action themselves like many households who move across the UK but even so, some of the hassle they cite is fairly normal of any kind of house move or any kind of change when income drops for whatever reason (redundancy, relationship breakdown, job change, the extra expense from having more children).

I am sympathetic to those who are affected who are dealing with disabilities where the local medical services or family support network are important.

It just seems that somehow, some claimants have been somehow cushioned from economic reality by quite generous and unconditional HB in the past but that's been pared back now dramatically, exposing them to the pressures of the rental market that they've been immune to before. So they are just having to make the types of changes that many other working families have to make.

gazter

benjus wrote: »

None of those things are "tax avoidance" in the way the phrase is normally used.

Erm yes they are. That's exactly what tax avoidance is. Arranging your affairs to lawfully avoid tax.

Pensions us the single biggest tax avoidance scheme. We bought our house for £250,000 we paid £2,500 stamp duty. If we had paid a penny more we would have had a £7,500 stamp duty liability instead.

Our solicitor, estate agent, mortgage provider, vendor and surveyor were all complicit in this tax avoidance scam.

My sister took part in a cycle to work scheme, it allowed her to buy her bike out of her salary before tax, instead of after.

We all avoid tax.

ABrass

Indeed, avoidance is the legal stuff.

Evasion is where you go beyond legal schemes into the realm of flat out lies, breaking the law and schemes that twist the letter of the law so hard that it snaps (ala Chris Moyles etc.)

theartfullodger

Personally, clearly, I'm against both tax evasion & benefit fraud - and any other criminal offence - and wish to see the toe-rags that indulge in any to be given a good kicking. Indeed I'd like to see a few of both, definitely including British-born-'n-bred, being deported (Syria, South Georgia...) "pour encourager les autres" as Voltaire said in Candide: Yes the law would need changing but what is it MPs are for?

Herewith HMRC links on how to report possible fraud with VAT, Income tax or benefits: Surely the citizen has a duty to assist the authorities apprehend crims?
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/reportingfraud/
& gov.uk on benefits..
https://www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud

I too understand tax fraud costs way, way more than benefit fiddlers. But if you want to hear of a few fiddlers who got nicked try..
http://benefitfraud.blogspot.co.uk/

Cheers!

princeofpounds

Interesting blog, thanks artful.

Also, further to my earlier post, the author has done their own analysis of the level of benefit fraud.

http://www.benefitfraud.org.uk/total-benefit-fraud/index.html

They conclude it is a multiple higher than the commonly-used figure, although I have no comment to make on the quality of their analysis at this stage.

Just as interestingly, it does appear that the figures for benefits fraud do not include social housing fraud, which is actually one of the major areas of popular concern.

jjlandlord

The problem with "popular concerns" is that they are often misguided. By that I mean that the level of concern is overblown compared to the actual importance of an issue.

If the figures from DWP quoted by the website above are to be trusted, then overall benefit fraud seems to stand at less than 2%.
I.e., while it should obviously not be tolerated and adequate safeguards should be in place (and they are) it is in fact a non-issue.

I take the point that that website claims that the figures are not to be trusted but that website is all about "the scandal of benefit fraud", while I note that they don't say who they are or where they picked the own estimates.

Which brings me back to my point:
Politicians and the media are good at blowing things out of proportions for easy votes and audience, while we, the public, are bad at putting issues into perspective.