Do you think there is anything inherently morally wrong with defrauding the tax or benefits system?
According to a number of CiF commentators, the answer is no. This is why:
leftboy The amounts they take off the taxpayer are absolutely miniscule in comparison to things which are obviously much more harmful – the monarchy, war in Iraq, etc. They’re at the bottom of the pile, using their wits to get some hard-needed £. I applaud them”
Asya: Very few creative people make reasonable money, and all of our great artists, actors and musicians were signing on at some point. When we’ve got protection for all workers, rent-capping, a high standard of working conditions and a decent minimum wage, then and only then can we contemplate ‘shopping a scrounger’. We should also get rid of the real scroungers, the monarchy, before we think about some poor sod that takes on low-paid work while needing housing benefit to help them pay their rent.
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The reason I ended up having to claim while I was a student was because it got to the point where the only way I could eat was to either steal a Linda McCartney lasagne from the Spar to share between three, or do a runner from a restaurant.Chunkynut: As soon as the government makes some headway on corporate fraud then I’ll start being bothered about benefit fraud. Being that it is ?1 of benefit fraud for every £10 of corporate fraud there is a long way to go, especially when the ‘scoungers’ supposedly only take £1 Billion per year
My view is that theft is theft. Stealing from “the system” actually means stealing from other taxpayers, and in effect, from those entitled to benefits. Honest people – whether tax payers or benefit recipients – are at a disadvantage to crooks, where cheating is rife.
Then, there’s the separate but related question of whether you, personally, would shop a cheat.
What do you think?
