This morning from Inside Child Poverty New Zealand : The crackdown on benefit fraudsters came into effect last Monday. Yes its theft and needs to be dealt with, but so is tax evasion and we dont see nearly the same effort into recovering money stolen by the rich . In my documentary MIND THE GAP I reported that each year the amount of DETECTED benefit fraud is about $26 million . The amount of DETECTED tax evasion is $ 1 BILLION every year. If you have seen the documentary you will have heard tax crime expert Dr Lisa Marriott say the true figure of tax evasion in NZ may be as high as $5 Billion . Yes, EVERY YEAR. Commit benefit fraud and you have a 60% chance of going to jail. Commit tax evasion you a 20 % chance of going to jail. The Government currently prosecutes about 800 people for benefit fraud per year whereas only 50 people a year are prosecuted for tax evasion. These figures tell their own unbalanced story. But it is going to get worse. I see these tough new measures were annouced by Associate Minister Chester Burrows ( why not the MInister I wonder?) He is reported as saying : The measures include changing the law to hold partners of beneficiaries complicit in relationship fraud offending to account. In fairness, does that mean the National led coalition will also be looking to hold the partners of tax evaders more accountable if they have benefited from the theft? Sadly, I dont think well see any similar tax evasion measures being proposed any time soon, nor will we see extra resources being put into catching tax fraudsters even though the cost effective returns would far outway the effort now being put into catching benefit cheats. Why? Because prosecuting people you are never likely to meet is easy. Prosecuting people who you might be at a dinner with this week or have kids that go to the same school as your kids... isnt. Never -the- less where is the voice of conscience from the opposition parties ? Theft is theft. Evading your taxes is stealing from your friends and neighbours. If we want a fairer society we cannot have one law for the rich and another for the poor. Bryan PS The documentary is no longer On Demand at TV3 but I have put it on You Tube and you can watch it for free here: youtube/watch?v=__2EdGFdgTA If you can afford it you can also but the DVD of the documentary here. filmshop.co.nz/products-page/sociology/mind-the-gap/ All the money from the DVD sales of my programmes goes to feed breakfast to hungry Kiwi kids. You can support this page by sharing posts and choosing to like the page. For every like we gain 15 - 20 readers. Currently over 65,000 people are reading this page at some stage every week. So your support really does help. Thank you.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 19:22:52 +0000
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