According to Citizens Advice, around £6.2 billion of tax credits go unpaid every year—with up to £10.5 billion of means-tested benefits in total unclaimed. This includes four out of every five low-paid workers without children, who are missing out on tax credits worth at least £38 a week. This ‘benefit evasion’ dwarfs the amount lost through benefit fraud—a fact that is completely absent in the debate around cracking down on so-called welfare scroungers.
