Fraud costs the Government, businesses and consumers £30 billion a year, according to new official figures.
The National Fraud Authority (NFA), the Government agency, released the UK’s first comprehensive fraud estimate today. The figure includes scams, online theft, insurance cheats and tax fraud.
Tax fraud represented the biggest single area of loss, estimated at £15.2 billion, which is about 3 per cent of total tax liabilities.
At the Department for Work and Pensions, which pays unemployment and disability benefits, fraud loss is estimated at £1.1 billion, which is 0.8 per cent of total benefit expenditure.
In the private sector, the financial services industry recorded the highest loss to fraudsters, estimated to be £3.8 billion, with £1 billion in mortgage fraud and over £2 billion lost in insurance fraud. Plastic cards, online banking and cheque fraud comprised most of the remainder.
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