AndrocatAug 2, 2023

Gentle reminder: Whenever someone is trying to sell you a story about welfare fraud, they're actually just trying to make it harder for deserving applicants to get the help they need.

Stories about welfare fraud are 100% about making it hard for people to get help.
Measures to combat fraud all amount to making the walls higher.
There is absolutely zero effort made to check whether it reduces valid applications, and also zero effort made to check whether it reduces fraudulent applications.

So, next time someone wants to tell you about "social scrounging" or whatever fancy-ass vocab they've made up for their bullshit, just tell them to go fuck themselves, in the nicest possible way.

Show threadदुःख блядьAug 25, 2023
@androcat Talked to a lady who worked for the tax authority here in Norway once. She told me straight away that welfare fraud is such a minor phenomenon that it has zero effect on the welfare budget. She followed that up by saying, "So we need to decide what kind of society we want - one where we're so afraid that someone might get some help they didn't qualify for, at the risk of depriving many others who need that help? Or one where we help folks through tough times and help them become tax payers again?"
A year or two later, I read a study that showed a significant amount of "welfare fraud" cases are folks who genuinely believed they qualified.
The more accessible benefits are, the better for everyone, ultimately.
Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫
@souvlaki @androcat Also, universal benefits & services have the added bonus of not wasting any money on means testing and being logically impossible to obtain fraudulently.
Aug 26, 2023 at 1:18pmWeb
Show threadदुःख блядьAug 26, 2023
@petealexharris @androcat
Exactly! So much of today's welfare system is built around means testing and useless bureaucracy - the amount we spend on that as a society far outweighs any losses from fraudulent claims.
Show threadMatt TearleAug 29, 2023

@souvlaki @petealexharris @androcat

It was interesting moving back to NZ after so many years in the US. US taxes are stupidly unnecessarily complicated because freedom and choice and … I dunno, small government or something*. Meanwhile, the NZ govt is like “you made X, which means your taxes are Y, you’ve paid Z so you owe (Y-Z)”. Done. No fuss, no need for audits and chasing me for the $3.14 I might have miscalculated (while MegaCorp’s accountants help them dodge $42 million).

[*] Also bribery - sorry, “lobbying” - from tax preparation businesses.