Recently in The taxpayer pays Category

Apparently, the taxman has been going a bit crazy with our money. Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 show that Uncle Gordon and his staff spent £400,000 on train fares, £755,000 on air fares, and £596,000 on other travel costs (taxis, perhaps?). Where on earth could they possibly have been going? One would not have thought there was any job in the Treasury that entailed traversing the globe that much. Shame they didn't pick up any tax tips from all the low tax economies they undoubtedly visited. Then it would have been money well spent.

When the tax credits system was introduced, the position was that if the claimants later had an increase in income, this would lead to some or all of the credits being clawed back. However, if the increase in income was not more than £2,500, it was ignored. This is called an income disregard.

Due to so many reasons, chief of which was incompetence, many claimants whose income increased beyond the disregard amount of £2,500, were not asked to repay the tax credits. When this was discovered, the taxman decided that he could not, in good conscience, pursue many of the claimants for back payments, as that may cause them hardship. Especially as it was the taxman's fault that the clawback did not work in the first place.