Podcast BBC correctly claims that tax fraud is “30 times larger” than beneficial fraud – a complete fact

In a recent episode of BBC’s Strong message here Podcast, presented by the writer Armando Iannucci and journalist Helen Lewis, has been stated that “tax fraud is 30 times higher than benefit fraud.”

This is not correct. After the complete fact has contacted, the BBC eliminated the request from the episode of Podcast, which was launched on March 20 and broadcast BBC Radio 4 the same day and has issued a correction.

He says: “In a discussion about the use of political language around well -being and benefits, it has been stated that tax fraud in the UK is thirty times greater than benefit fraud. This is incorrect.”

Broadcasters should make every effort to achieve proper accuracy in all productions. False or misleading claims should be properly and clearly corrected in a timely manner. We are grateful BBC because it has taken measures to correct this error.

The same statement has It was also shared on facebook. We regularly see receivables circulating on social networks that compare tax revenues lost with the magnitude of the benefits fraud.

Benefit fraud against tax fraud

the last digits Estimated that, in 2023/24, 7.4 billion pounds of the benefit expenses were paid in excess due to fraud.

the latest government digits on tax fraud – also known as tax evasion – covers the financial year 2022/23. They show that the amount of estimated income was lost due to tax evasion was 5.5 billion pounds.

Excessive payments due to accounting fraud 6.3 billion pounds benefit expenses in 2022/23.

As established in the BBC correction, in the last year for which we have comparable data, official estimates suggest that benefit fraud have actually exceeded losses due to tax fraud.

It is important to note that the official estimates of the amount of tax evasion have been questioned by some. For example, a report published last month by the Commons Camera Public Account Committee he said HMRC was “likely to have underestimated the scale”, although it did not estimate as much.

However, I did not notice any credible estimate that suggests that the true staircase of tax fraud could be so that the lost amount is 30 times to benefit from fraud.

But the “fiscal gap”?

Classes that compare tax fraud and benefit fraud are often based on size estimatesfiscal gap‘ – the difference between the value of the tax collected by the HMRC and the amount that should have been collected theoretically. This includes tax evasion (which is illegal), but also non-legal forms of tax payment or non-payment, such as avoiding tax.

HMRC estimates that in 2022/23, the fiscal gap was approximately 39.8 billion pounds‘Round six times larger than benefit from fraud that year.

Some independent estimates have suggested that the true dimension of fiscal gap could be much larger, though other experts have challenged this analysis.

In response to the publication of the latest estimation of the HMRC tax difference (for 2022/23), the economist Richard Murphy – who claimed that HMRC significantly underestimates the magnitude of the fiscal gap – GUARDIAN that he thought that the total amount of tax is not collected could be closer to 100 billion pounds.

While evaluating that estimation is beyond the scope of this fact, even a much higher figure is not 30 times higher than the estimated value of being lost as a result of fraud.