British parliamentâ„¢s expenses watchdog has hit out at the government for its failure to tackle fraud at HM Revenue and Customs leading to an estimated £5 billion budget loss.
The Commons public accounts committee said tax revenues will be less than half the expected amount because they could not trap tax frauds.
“HMRC’s performance in cutting the level of fraud and error in the tax credits system has been hugely disappointing and extremely poor. In these strained times, the government cannot afford these failures,” committee chairman Margaret Hodge said.
Tax credits paid to some six million families cost the public £30 billion annually.
The committee added that they expect the HMRC to miss the £8 billion savings target, set in the 2010 spending review, by £5 billion by 2015.
The HMRC says it has increased checks on individuals, claiming tax credits, from 123,000 to six million a year.
However, the committee dismissed it as inadequate, seeing that the HMRC lost £2.3 billion to error and fraud only in 2010-2011 that was £850 million more than expected.
AMR/HE
This article originally appeared on : Press TV