Dundee LibDems hit out at Government's disgraceful Tax Credit record (Dundee Liberal Democrats)

Dundee Liberal Democrats <info@dundeelibdems.org.uk>

Dundee LibDems hit out at Government's disgraceful Tax Credit record

May 26, 2007 6:38 AM

Dundee Liberal Democrats have today (Saturday 26th May) hit out at the government's disgraceful Tax Credit record after the government published records showing they overpaid £4.5 million of Tax Credits in 2005/6 to Dundee citizens and wrongly paid out over £9 billion across the country over a three year period (2003/04 to 2005/06).

At the same time they failed to pay 2600 Dundee families the Tax Credit awards they were entitled to. This amounted to a massive underpayment of £1.4 million.

Dundee City Council Liberal Democrat Group Leader, Cllr Fraser Macpherson, said, "The government's record on Tax Credits here in Dundee is a disgrace. Gordon Brown has presided over a Tax Credits fiasco that is of his own making.

"Not only have taxpayers in Dundee lost out, but the government is now trying to claw back money from people on very low incomes - even when it was government mistakes which led to the errors.

Cllr Macpherson continued, "The government's shambolic Tax Credit system leads to uncertainty for many families in Dundee as they have no way of knowing what they will receive. I am campaigning for a simple system of fixed term awards of six months so that families know what they are getting and get what they are entitled to."

Note :

Nationally the government has overpaid £5.7billion in tax credits, but Liberal Democrat research also shows that the Government has incorrectly paid out around £3.6bn in fraud and error since 2003 - most of which will never be recovered. This means over £9bn has been paid in error, of which up to £5bn will be lost.

Overpayments and Underpayments by local authority and constituency can be found by following the link below: