Claire Wilson
IAIN DUNCAN SMITH has met with the benefit fraud investigation team in Spain, which has helped recover almost £5 million of UK tax payers’ money.
The secretary of state for work and pensions thanked the Madrid-based team, which has investigated more than 1200 of benefit fraud involving British expats.
More allegations of benefit fraud are received in Spain than in any other foreign country, with fraudulent claims for pension credit and income support being the most commonly investigated.
Investigators explained to the politician they are able to trace suspects living in Spain by sharing data with the Spanish authorities, and that they follow up on leads provided by those calling the benefit fraud hotline here in Spain.
Nigel Hadley is the latest to have been convicted of benefit fraud after failing to declare his Marbella house on claim forms.
The 61-year-old has been ordered to sell his Spanish property to pay back more than £25,000 in falsely claimed benefits.
Ian Duncan Smith said: ““It is important that fraudulent claimants realise that even if they are living in Spain, it doesn’t mean they won’t be caught. Benefit fraud is a crime and we are committed to putting a stop to it whether you live in Spain, the UK or anywhere else in the world. Our investigators are here in Spain to make sure that no fraudster goes undetected.
“I would urge British residents who suspect someone of committing benefit fraud to call the hotline in Spain on 900 554 440. You can help us to ensure that UK taxpayers’ money is going to those that need it most.”
¨help us to ensure that UK taxpayers’ money is going to those that need it most.”
And that is … !!!
Immigrants and Breeding Families . .
Not the English person who has contributed most of there lives . . .
Good Luck Dunky . . .
I would much rather these benefits went to British people in Spain – as a British tax payer I do not have a problem with it. Many of them are pensioners and they should not be losing the WFA either. Why not ditch overseas aid? Charity begins at home. Yet another example of how Britain punishes its indigenous population, most of whom have paid taxes all their lives. The UK government were happy to spend a fortune on keeping Abu Qatada and his family (and many others like them) in the UK at the taxpayers’ expense (I believe it cost about £1m overall) before finally booting him out. It’s ironic that they supported him for about 10 years yet they make this bloke sell his house for a pittance so he can pay back £25,000. OK, he was wrong and should not have lied to the authorities but it seems like the thin end of the wedge.
I see, as a UK citizen he went back to England and claimed benefits but failed to declare that he owned a house in Spain. Presumably all the immigrants who work in England and claim benefits which their situation indicates they are entitled to including child tax credits and family allowance for children who are not in the country but ‘back home’ should be fined, prosecuted and given prison sentences for not declaring that they own a house back in Poland or wherever it is? Oh no, of course, if you say anything like that you are called a racist. Disgraceful.
olive press am i allowed to use the word a*se??? cos that is what he is….the worst of toryism….and im a bit of a semi! .you have these poor OAPs worked all their lives and denied WFA .what is the difference from moving from salford to scunthorpe or salford to spain?????????? ARE WE IN THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE OR NOT?FOR ALL THINGS OR JUST THIS ONE AND NOT THAT? WELL SAID MARKIE!! DONT SAY IT TOO LOUD THOUGH.YOU WILL BE ABUSED FOR BEING A RACIST.
This is the chap who has put paid to the W.F.A. for ex-pats. This is the guy who has wasted millions (and continues to) on failed I.T. schemes in his idiotic pursuit of “Universal Credit”. This is the guy who was sacked as leader of the Tory Party because he was totally ineffectual. He is the architect of a most cruel system of “medical” tests, designed to return sick and disabled people to work, which they are totally incapable of. This move is designed to appeal to Mail readers in hope of gaining votes in next years General Election. He hasn’t finished yet. He will be coming for ex-pat State Pensioners soon.
Note the frothing against immigrants that it has already provoked in Little Englanders on here. You are all so easy.
Is the UK government not itself guilty of benefit fraud by denying its expat OAPs the WFA? The only difference I see is that the WFA is not actually a benefit because the OAPs have worked hard all their lives and paid for it! It is said one can judge a country by the way it treats its animals – I would suggest one can also judge a country by the way it treats its OAPs. Personally I would now be very inclined to keep schtum if I became aware of a benefits cheat here in Spain – the UK should be looking much closer to home!
1200 benefit cheats tracked down in Spain and 5 million recovered, very laudable IDS, that should get you a couple of votes from Daily Mail readers but it’s a drop in the ocean of the benefit fraud that is going on your own doorstep. Benefit fraud robs all tax payers including the pensioner ex pats you have targeted since you got that job. Pensions reclassified as benefits, claimants of winter fuel allowance branded as scrounging traitors safe in the knowledge that many of us can’t vote you out of office.
Delicate subject, yes you should keep your WFA and the UK is well down on the list of financial benefits for pensioners, 77th in the world I have read and handing £12bn a year out in Foreign aid is madness. I don’t think if someone has a home abroad they should be penalised in any way when they need benefits, bricks and mortar are not going to feed them and pay for the heating. There are hundreds of thousands of foreign children being given child benefit legally when they have never lived in the UK and don’t even have to visit, just their parents need to work in the UK so the system is all wrong and I suppose they blame all of these things on Europe. On the other hand there are plenty of people that I have met who claim illegal benefits in Spain, is that OK? With no one living in the UK they claim family allowance, can’t work in the UK because of bad back but they are building their own houses in Spain and claiming in the UK, so why should the tax payer support someone to have a permanent holiday. It is not just the pensioners that are being taken for a ride, if you have an average Company car you are now paying 40% after about £36k. The lower band seems to be raised, so low earners pay less tax and those trying to work hard and get somewhere are just dis-incentivised to go above and beyond, so people like me just throw 20 to 30% in a pension / SIPP every month to reduce the amount of tax and take 25% tax free lump sum when we retire, that is if they don’t change the rule son that soon. I think they should send out the message that in the longer term the £26k cap rate for hand-outs is going to be reduced so this will give the baby making machines who pop one out a year a bit of time to rethink their long term careers. I only have two kids, but there are people knocking out 5 or 6 who can only afford to keep them with top ups from all angles, the planet needs fewer people not more.
Wow,
5 million recovered – now let’s talk about tax evasion by Tories and their friends – 60 billion and that’s a conservative estimate – puts 5 million into the shade.
The 26k benefits cap is smoke and mirrors. Recipients of benefits don’t actually get that, the greater part of it goes to rent and council tax, a couple, out of work, get £112.55 a week. Just over five grand a year between them. It’s time for a rent cap, instead of people being sent to food banks by job centres. Worth ruminating on what it cost to “save” that five million. Be interesting to know the size of this undercover squad and their life style in Spain, while hunting down these miscreants.
And when is going to go after MP frauds and the thousands of UK residents being defrauded in Spain.
Let’s talk about the Tory public school boy MP that housed his parents at the expense of the mug taxpayers – £100,000 – benefit fraud – nah it’s only benefit fraud for the lumpen proles – revolution anyone?
In UK the elderly are taken as a burden. Their youth & energy had already been extracted from them while they worked & paid their taxes. They were taxed and as a result did not have much left to plan for their future.
They were shown the rose garden and deceived that they will be looked after in their old age. Dont kind yourself, Tory or no Tory they are all the same.
For the above reason I am with the tax avoiders & have no axe to grind with them.
Camel,
your not an English version of the Tea Party fools are you? A movement started and funded by two billionaire brothers and very successful it was getting blue collar workers to demand tax cuts for the uber rich – Dr. Goebbels would be ecstatic.
The £60 billion plus would transform the UK into a country worth living in.
Seriously & how much do you think will benefit normal people including elderly. Crumbs will be filter down to ordinary people on the street and this would transform UK.
How much of the oil revenue from north sea has transformed the life of people.
North sea oil certainly transformed peoples lives. For the worse. It was used, by Maggie, to dump untold thousands of people on to the scrap heap of unemployment, instead of investing in manufacturing and giving them jobs. Norway shows how it should have been done. But of course, the bogeyman of unions had to be destroyed and a strong, resurgent working-class would have defeated that object. All of which led to the idiocy of a “service economy” the bonfire of fiscal regulations and the melt-down of the banking and insurance “industry”. So, here we are. knackered.
I wonder if Camel and PG are proper names?.
Oh no, the fool with multiple aliases is back. Just ignore.
caccia??…it is my nom de guerra,i think thats how you spell it? no hidden agenda,just an exchange of views,debates,etc in an unoffensive,unless you are stuart, way. which i thank the olive press for.btw….PG would be a proper name if i was a t-bag…which no iam not…here endith the lesson
@FRed, I am not sure if your posting is directed to me. Any how I do not have aliases or have used the forum in the past. I got registered a few weeks ago.
Cheers
PG: Nom de plume mate.
Camel: don’t get the hump.It’s caccia and his many guises at question.
To PG, Camel and Fred.
Just an observation I made regarding titles that are being used as I had been accused of using a title that I am best known by friends back in old U.K for years, the years meaning perhaps older than Fred is.
By the way Fred, see one of your compatriots had been caught for not declaring property assets, warning, all be careful, they are closing in.
Fred,
By the way, are you the FOOL that complained about declaring property assets.
Oh no cacafranco etc the self-confessed troll is back, now what was he said when he was exposed, ‘my neighbour uses the same computer as my wife’s one being used by me and Uncle Tom Cobbley, not forgetting the local mayor, the post woman, rubbish collectors yada yada’ Lol Lol
Caccia, I didn’t name you, yet you knew you were the fool. lol. Classic.
OP, please ban this troll as they post under multiple aliases, as impersonation is strictly prohibited, as stipulated under the terms below.
@stefanjo: Thanks. As a Camel I am allowed to have humps atleast two.
Caccia, I still have three homes in Europe and Spain only knows about the one in Spain, and that will always be the case unless I decide otherwise. Sorry if that frustrates noobs like yourself. lol.
Mike,
Please print my name correctly and please correct your English. I don’t troll, I merely respond to all the rubbish that appear in these articles. I’m afraid it’s people like yourself and Fred that do all the trolling and come up with so much uniformed knowledge.
Fred,
I think you will find that Spain is not really interested in your property in Spain and if you correctly filled in Form 720 it’s property assets outside of Spain.
Cacca, you know very well you post under multiple names that aren’t your own so tough luck on your request, remember you didn’t even know your assumed name above was Italian? OP exposed you for multiple aliases. Lol
You admitted on a topic that you are a Troll as well, you made up that cock and bull story of how your computer was used by all and sundry, that’s why your names are all different. You do make it up as you get found out.
Everyone other than you who post on here has more informed knowledge than you do BTW, Lol
Mike,
See what I mean, you still get the name wrong. Load of rubbish again, nothing but complaints, forgot more than you will ever know and could still leave you standing on any subject, but regardless, these write ups should be on a more informative subject and of topics of interest instead of name calling and know doubt I could possibly name a few that use unknown names, but that’s not the point.
Keep dreaming.
Caccia, if Spain is not interested in the other properties owned by residents that exist outside of Spain, then why does it require people to fill in declaration forms (that you, yourself, mentioned above) declaring their existence?
You have contradicted yourself in just one sentence lol. Of course Spain wants to know about them, otherwise it would not ask. Get wise.
Note to OP Web Manager: self-confessed trolls who post under multiple aliases are in breach of terms.
Fred,
I think you misunderstood what I had printed. Please read again. Spain is not really interested in residents with property in Spain but with residents with property outside of Spain and if you had filled in Form 720 you will know what I mean. All to do with taxation and if still not sure check with you accountant.
Just to give you a piece of common knowledge.
Take Spain or even the U.K. If you own two properties or more in Spain, live in one and sell the other’s capital gains would need to be paid and in the U.K it’s 40% on the profit after purchase price and expenditures.
But surely you would know this if you had completed Form 720.
As for OP, Caccia is the name I use the same as other aliases used on this site.
Fred,
P.S. Forgot to mention there are ways around this capital gains tax which is all legal, but that’s another story.
You’ll always be cacca or cac to me since you continue to use aliases. Angie told you what your name meant in Sicilian didn’t she, you’d not last 5 minutes there. Lol
I totally agree with Fred, OP who exposed you btw should ban you once you admitted to being a troll.
Just re-read your post, it’s a pathetic rant of made up nonsense, you know nothing about me, but I/we know a lot about you, you’ve told us how you share your computer with the post lady and Uncle Tom Cobbley, oh and your alter ego Franco Lol
Cacc at least I pmsl at your posts.
Mike,
There you go again, rubbish. Is that all your conversation exist of, waste of time and space and not worthy of a reply.
You know the old saying, and I do know about you “Thick as two planks” and please do not respond to my mails as I find it’s a waste of time.
As for impersonating someone else, WHO, and is you name Mike or Michael.
Caccafranco You’ve been found out time and time again by others and me who post on here, includes the OP so don’t deny it. You tried it before and then went quiet, admitted you were trolling, you’re banged to rights, but we have to feed the troll cacca he needs sustenance. Lol
Don’t you understand basics, such as Mike is short for Michael? Hilarious lack of knowledge PMSL
Now you’ll have to answer again won’t you? You know you want to!
Mike,
caccia could be short for cacciatoi, ya know Mike for Michael.
Had you thought of that?.
“Don’t you understand basics, such as Mike is short for Michael? Hilarious lack of knowledge PMSL”
Did you know that the Conservatives are drawing up plans to freeze the pensions of all ex pats should Britain leave the EU, wake up to what this planned EU referendum means.
Peter: Well done for getting back to the point. The latest action of IDS. attack dogs was to write to a person who was in a coma (caused by their actions) to tell him he is fit for work and would not be receiving benefits.
As for the “benefits fraud” you mentioned, the fact is, that more money is retained by the state in unpaid and unclaimed benefits than is fiddled from it. The people who shout the loudest about “scroungers” are invariably those who have never had personal truck with the system. Which, once experienced, causes permanent disillusion and despair.
Peter,
Didn’t know that the Conservatives were drawing up plans to freeze the pensions of all ex-pat pensioners should Britain leave the EU, but did read it from a hack reporter on the Telegraph news paper.
Never been officially mentioned anywhere in their manifesto besides could they cope with an extra in-flux of ex-pat immigrates. Whichever the way, they would still need to pay the pension whether it’s abroad or in the U.K as it’s not classed as a benefit but payments paid into the system over the years by the pensioner’s.
Stefanjo,
You are dead right for a change.
“The people who shout the loudest about “scroungers” are invariably those who have never had personal truck with the system. Which, once experienced, causes permanent disillusion and despair”.
Are you saying there are no “Scroungers”.
Mike,
I have a friend called Mick which is also a shortened version for Michael, so which one of the alias names can be used, Mick or Mike.
A bit confused here?.
@caccia
This is an extract of an e mail I received from a reliable source not a Telegraph hack.
The Pensions Bill Government Bill by Mr Iain Duncan Smith MP. This has almost completed its stages in the House of Lords. It has numerous amendments which have to be debated back to the Commons. Expatriate Pensioners and Prisoners are covered under the same heading! Clause 20 remains which would enable pensions to be frozen for British Citizens in the EU if the UK were to leave the EU.
This is real and most ex pats are not aware of what is going on, most won’t care till it actually happens, which of course will be too late. Most take the same attitude as you, all rumour and they wouldn’t want ex pats returning home in droves so nothing will happen-well it is being discussed in parliament and has a real possibility of happening should Britain leave the EU. Gay marriage wasn’t in the manifesto but it happened, but hey you keep the faith that politicians are honest and will give you advanced notice of their dirty tricks.
Peter,
It’s been on the cards for quite a while now, we will have to wait and see. It will not affect current pension payments and the increases over the years has been a joke anyway.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-2507133/Government-focus-ending-expat-state-pension-freeze.html
Peter,
Whatever the outcome, pension’s as proposed, will be frozen regardless as to when one retires even on future pensions for expats. We must ensure that finance is available for future immigrants into the U.K regardless whether it be for free housing, social services, free schooling, free medical and cash for scroungers..