Migrants erroneously received tax credits |
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Published
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Wed, 14 Jun 2006 01:10
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LONDON - Thousands of immigrants have ended up receiving millions of pounds in tax credits, which they should not have got in the first place, according to Inland Revenue documents obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents reveal that some 2,700 families were wrongly paid the credits. In some cases these credits were worth more than £10,000. It has emerged that Inland Revenue officials did not bother to check if these families had passed the UK residency test. All they needed to do to get the money was a national insurance (NI) number. The overpayments were made from April 2003 and December 2004.
Reacting to this report, a HM Revenue & Customs spokesman said that all claims would be pursued and that the incorrect payments would be stopped. "This is an inaccurate version of an old story that was widely reported last November. Officials were never instructed to 'overlook irregularities' where claimants had 'failed' a UK residency rule. Neither is there any new loss of money."
The Liberal Democrats said that this was a new ruse to see that chancellor Gordon Brown's scheme was seen to be successful. The party's work and pensions spokesman, David Laws said that the government must reveal how much money had been overpaid, "My fear is... that ministers were so desperate that this system should succeed - this was a flagship project for the government and Gordon Brown - that they appear to have designed into the system very few of the checks and balances that the DWP usually has before it pays out benefits," Laws said.
He added that the total fraud or error payments under the system cost the Treasury half a billion pounds a year.
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Failed asylum seekers cost British tax payers £300 million a year 