Cheating Pensioners Will Be Forced To Sell Their House....

[Gromit]

....to repay the taxpayers says Iain Duncan Smith.

// Welfare cheats will be forced to sell their homes and pay higher fines to reimburse taxpayers for the money they have wrongly claimed, under plans to tackle benefit fraud.

Hundreds of thousands of pensioners who fail to declare their full earnings from private pension schemes will also be targeted as fraud investigators trawl through HM Revenue & Customs records.

:: Existing claimants will be cross-checked against HMRC records to catch pensioners who are receiving extra income than they have declared from private schemes, while also claiming pension credit, a means-tested benefit.

Officials estimate that fraud by pensioners failing to declare their full income cost taxpayers £170 million last year, up from £140 million in 2012.

Officials expect to find 300,000 pensioners and workers who are claiming benefits to which they are not entitled because they have not declared their full income. The system will be tried out this month.

The plans form part of a major campaign from ministers this week to publicise reforms to the welfare system, which the Conservatives regard as among their most popular, vote-winning policies. //

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10747122/Benefit-cheats-face-higher-fines-and-losing-their-homes.html

A vote winning policy - What's not to like?

[emmie]

even though i told the DWP ages back about my annuity, its so small that hardly worth a mention, but i did tell them, and yet i had a heavy handed meeting with someone at the job centre, who said she personally didn't have the info, mistakes happen, and often its by the DWP and the tax offices. I was left in bits because of this,