Liars, cheats and crooks have always been with us. So have accountants who hunt for fancy tax loopholes on behalf of greedy clients. We have never liked any of them; but when times were good, the economy was motoring and government had money to spend, we worried more about other things. Today, when money is tight, the mood is different. Tax-dodging and welfare-fiddling are not only morally offensive; they also starve the government of revenue it badly needs. The cost to the rest of us, in higher taxes or lower public spending, is more keenly felt.
But which affronts us more: the moral turpitude or the lost cash—the welfare cheats who lie in order to claim extra benefits, or the millionaires who tell no lies and use legal, but artificial, means to minimise their tax bill?
YouGov’s latest poll for Prospect suggests that, when push comes to shove, rich tax avoiders—companies as well as individuals—offend us most. They should be the top target for government action. However, just to make life that bit more difficult for ministers juggling with their priorities, Conservative voters do not see things in quite the same way as everybody else.
First, our survey posed six frequently discussed ways in which different people try to keep, or get, more cash for themselves. Not surprisingly, the one that attracts the greatest opprobrium is rich individuals engaging in tax evasion—lying about their income in order to keep their tax bill down. Eighty-eight per cent say this is “never” or “rarely” acceptable (although 8 per cent of the public—that’s more than 3m people—say it is sometimes, or usually, acceptable).
The proportion that condemns rich people who don’t lie but use legal, if artificial, forms of tax avoidance is lower, but still overwhelming: 73 per cent.
Between these two are the big majorities who think it is never, or rarely, acceptable for those not living in poverty to claim extra welfare benefits by cheating (82 per cent) and those who are appalled by companies that keep down their tax bill by using internal accounting devices to shift profits from Britain to low-tax countries.
A smaller number, but still a clear majority (64 per cent), condemns parents who lie to claim extra benefits to make ends meet, but a substantial minority, 30 per cent, say this can sometimes be acceptable. The only one of the six activities that divides Britain down the middle is individuals such as plumbers, decorators and electricians who charge “people like you less if you pay cash, when you are sure that they will not pay income tax and/or VAT on what you pay them.” As many as 44 per cent say this can be acceptable, while 48 per cent say it is always or almost always wrong.
So, overall, there is widespread condemnation of cheating and avoidance of all kinds, with the partial exception of cash-in-hand small traders. However, when we move from asking separately about the six activities to a comparative question—“which two are the most unacceptable”—a sharper picture emerges. The top three public hates are the activities of rich people and companies, even if they operate within the law. It seems that public priorities are driven more by the lost cash than outright dishonesty. Welfare cheats score much lower, and here there is more of a cash/morality trade-off, with more people (26 per cent) saying one of their top hatreds is individuals who are not poor lying to boost their income by £40 a week—and far fewer, 11 per cent, condemning parents of children living in poverty lying to claim twice as much, £80 a week.
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It’s clear that these rankings are driven by a widespread perception that legal tax avoidance by companies and rich individuals costs the government more than illegal tax evaders and welfare cheats. They are probably right. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs tries to estimate the money lost each year through avoidance and evasion. HMRC’s estimate can only be a best-guess, of course: by definition, much of the lost cash goes to people and activities they have not tracked down; but it thinks tax avoidance currently costs at least £5bn a year, while fraudulent welfare claims cost £1.2bn and cash-in-hand moonlighting £1.9bn a year. And some of that fraudulently-claimed £3.1bn goes to well-off crooks, dishonest landlords and sophisticated scams: the total amount going to “ordinary” small traders and welfare cheats is probably much less.
However, Conservative voters have a different take from Labour and Lib Dem supporters. By 55-40 per cent, Tories think the government’s priority should be to clamp down on tax evaders and welfare cheats, rather than the legal tax avoidance activities of big corporations and rich individuals. By large margins, those who support Labour (by 72-20 per cent) or the Lib Dems (by 63-31 per cent) hold the opposite view.
Finally, we asked people if they had dodged the tax or welfare system themselves. As YouGov conducts its surveys online, people tend to be more honest about sensitive questions than in telephone or face-to-face polls, which require admission to a stranger of questionable behaviour. However, common sense suggests that our figures are still underestimates of the true position.
Nevertheless, it’s notable that 18 per cent of our respondents admit to having paid small traders in cash to help them evade tax and/or VAT—that’s equivalent to 8m adults. And 5 per cent, or more than 2m, admit to cheating in order to pay less tax or claim extra welfare benefits. As might be expected, they are less censorious than the wider public of tax-dodging activities. But the differences aren’t huge. With them, as with people as a whole, the picture is clear: morality matters, but money matters more
