Is state pension a benefit?

Hoenir

badmemory said:

They will be looking for accounts with any foreign transactions to the wrong countries I would think.  They have said living abroad is one of the things they are looking for.  Wouldn't it be nice if they chased the much larger tax frauds as thoroughly.

Over many years this is add up to be a significant amount of money. 

kaMelo

badmemory said:

They will be looking for accounts with any foreign transactions to the wrong countries I would think.  They have said living abroad is one of the things they are looking for.  Wouldn't it be nice if they chased the much larger tax frauds as thoroughly.

Each and every day Government is criticised for not spending enough money on this, that, or the other.  I'm pretty sure Government of any political flavour would welcome a few extra billion in receipts from chasing larger scale frauds,  The idea that Government simply chooses to ignore large scale fraud in favour of picking 'low hanging fruit' such as benefit fraud is ridiculous. 

badmemory

kaMelo said:

badmemory said:

They will be looking for accounts with any foreign transactions to the wrong countries I would think.  They have said living abroad is one of the things they are looking for.  Wouldn't it be nice if they chased the much larger tax frauds as thoroughly.

Each and every day Government is criticised for not spending enough money on this, that, or the other.  I'm pretty sure Government of any political flavour would welcome a few extra billion in receipts from chasing larger scale frauds,  The idea that Government simply chooses to ignore large scale fraud in favour of picking 'low hanging fruit' such as benefit fraud is ridiculous. 

Good point but they do let large tax underpayers off at less than 10p in the pound, they wouldn't do that for errors made to benefit claimants, not even errors the DWP made.

kaMelo

badmemory said:

kaMelo said:

badmemory said:

They will be looking for accounts with any foreign transactions to the wrong countries I would think.  They have said living abroad is one of the things they are looking for.  Wouldn't it be nice if they chased the much larger tax frauds as thoroughly.

Each and every day Government is criticised for not spending enough money on this, that, or the other.  I'm pretty sure Government of any political flavour would welcome a few extra billion in receipts from chasing larger scale frauds,  The idea that Government simply chooses to ignore large scale fraud in favour of picking 'low hanging fruit' such as benefit fraud is ridiculous. 

Good point but they do let large tax underpayers off at less than 10p in the pound, they wouldn't do that for errors made to benefit claimants, not even errors the DWP made.

I'm assuming you're referring to multi-national corporations, for whom tax calculations are never so simple. Trying to compare that to errors and fraud relating to benefit claimants are like chalk and cheese.
It's not a UK thing, Governments around the world are trying to grapple with generating as much tax as possible whilst avoiding scaring companies enough to register their tax base elsewhere. Whether we like it or not it will always be a negotiation, Apple in Ireland is a perfect example.

Then there are things such as IR35 and the loan charge scheme, complex examples of tax evasion that takes time to chase down.

Government should, and I assume does, chase down anyone and anything it suspects of fraud and evasion, it's just some are easier to achieve than others. To stand up and simply says "Get ...insert company here... to pay their fair share of taxes" completely misses the point of how difficult it can be to achieve.

Nardy

Rather than means test pensions, it would make more sense for pensioners to pay NI, with according adjustments to thresholds to avoid less well-off pensioners paying it.

HillStreetBlues

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Can anyone point me to an official source for the bank access thing, please?  I don't trust the newspapers not to take quotes out of context or speculate beyond what's actually been said.

[Glad to have learned why they would need access for pensioners' accounts even if they're not claiming PC, thanks to those more knowledgeable for that!]

It's in the amendment of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3430

The phase they use is "Relevant benefits"  and can use that to "spy"  on anyone on a relevant benefits
The meaning of that is
Relevant benefits
16 In this Schedule “relevant benefit” means any of the following—
(a) a relevant social security benefit as defined in section
121DA(7);
(b) a child tax credit or working tax credit under the Tax Credits
Act 2002;
(c) a payment, as mentioned in subsection (2)(d) of section 2
of the Employment and Training Act 1973, under
arrangements made under that section.

So State pensions are include in it

I don't trust what is said will or won't happen, I look at what they put into law.

EDIT
The reason SP is covered is that the Pension Act 2014 (part 1) is cover by Social Security Administration Act 1992 121DA(7);

badmemory

I think it is a case of if they can they will.

HillStreetBlues

badmemory said:

I think it is a case of if they can they will.

It will be certain that it will go though "ping-pong" so the final text will no doubt be adjusted, but it remains to be see by how much.

Muttleythefrog

kaMelo said:

.... why let the facts get in the way of a good story, especially when no one will look past the headlines.
.

Yes the newspapers are terrible for doing this..... and so is this government! Problem with intent and actual policy or policy you end up with can change with the wind... and people's suspicions are, when they've faced years of lies, not surprisingly hot. I mean this is a government that announced it would abolish the much hated WCA for sick and disabled people (even attracting praise from me!) to improve the disabled person's experience (following a consultation where they promised participants of publication before refusing to publish)... and then later announced before it would do that it'd make the assessment harder... just one example relevant to this board.

Personally I would just hope whatever they do in the area of data matching, financial information and 3rd party banking reports to target error and fraud is accurate as I've certainly been victim to flawed information in the past (facing interrogation 'well our information is usually correct' as she permanently scowled while reading through every page of a closed savings account that unfortunately didn't reveal me as a man of great hidden wealth..they thought 6 figures but tragically only 4) and banks drive me to despair when it comes to just getting basic information correct... my poor wife (who has retained the same name since birth) according to her credit report (the only one we can find anyway!) has used so many aliases in the UK one surely would conclude she is a fraudster and every error is from the banks or lenders... not her... they just put any old rubbish in... Lloyds bank even did it in person while sitting with her passport and UK government issued BRP to add her to my account. The idiot proudly smiling announcing 'I've definitely got it right' having invented 3 middle names. 'Know your client' - golden rule of A-M laundering. So my worry is more reporting by the banks may come with caveat for more errors and goodness knows how that may play out if trying to detect those with pensions who live overseas especially given the lengthy periods pensioners often do spend abroad.

Means testing state pension seems a long way off due to the political consequences for a government that tries it.