THE UK Government has been accused of having 10 times more Whitehall staff "dealing often with the poorest in society abusing benefits than with the super-rich evading their taxes".
The accusation came from Angus Robertson, the SNP leader at Westminster, who challenged David Cameron during Commons question time when Jeremy Corbyn also clashed with the Prime Minister over cuts to HM Revenue and Customs staff targeting tax dodgers.
At PMQs, Mr Robertson pointed out how “3250 DWP(Department for Work and Pensions) staff have been specifically investigating benefit fraud whilst only 300 HMRC staff have been systematically investigating tax evasion.
"Surely we should care equally about people abusing the tax system and those abusing the benefits system? Why has this Government had 10 times more staff dealing often with the poorest in society abusing benefits than with the super-rich evading their taxes?” asked the Moray MP.
Mr Cameron said he would look carefully at the Nationalist MP’s statistics but said they sounded “entirely bogus” and explained: “The predominant job of the DWP is to make sure that people receive their benefits. The predominant job of HMRC is to make sure people pay their taxes.
"The 26,000 people I spoke about earlier, all of them are making sure that people pay their taxes; the clue's in the title," added the PM.
Later, HMRC branded Mr Robertson’s claim “complete nonsense” and said: “The suggestion that only 300 HMRC people are working against evasion by the wealthy is plain wrong.
“We have over 26,000 people working right across the range of our enforcement and compliance business focussed on stopping tax evasion, avoidance and fraud; day in day out. The dedicated units referred to are important elements of that work but are far from the sum total," added a spokesman.
But the SNP leader hit back, stressing how he had been referring specifically to the 300 staff in HMRC’s affluent compliance team, which targeted taxpayers with an annual income of more than £150,000 and wealth in the range £1 million to £25m.
“Surely we should care equally about people abusing the tax system and those abusing the benefits system. David Cameron has said he will look at the figures; he also needs to ensure his government is putting its full weight behind ending tax evasion,” added Mr Robertson.
During Commons exchanges, the Labour leader claimed Mr Cameron was cutting staff levels by 20 per cent and closing tax offices.
But the PM insisted the UK Government had invested £1 billion in HMRC since 2010 to improve tax collection and was hiring more staff in its compliance department.
"It's not how much money you spend on an organisation, it's about how many people you can actually have out there collecting the taxes and making sure the forms are properly filled in," declared Mr Cameron.
Mr Corbyn replied: "You are quite right, the number of people out there collecting taxes is important, therefore why have you laid off so many staff at HMRC who therefore cannot collect those taxes?"
Mr Cameron insisted no other government, Labour or Conservative, had done as much as the current administration to crack down on tax dodgers and said Britain would in June publish a full beneficial ownership register of companies but admitted overseas territories' similar lists would not be made public.
The PM said he did not want to force the crown dependencies to make their registers public because "some of them might have walked away" from the drive for transparency.
However, Mr Corbyn accused his Tory opponent of merely spouting “tough talk”, noting how the Cayman Islands premier was "celebrating victory" because the information would not be available publicly or directly to UK agencies.
Mr Cameron responded by insisting the public beneficial ownership register would be an "absolute first" for Britain and highlighted other moves to make foreign companies declare details of the properties they owned.
He told the Leader of the Opposition: "The truth is you are running to catch up because Labour did nothing in 13 years."
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