Are you missing out on tax credits?

Did you know that a whopping £20bn of benefits are UNCLAIMED every year?

Tens of millions of pounds are unclaimed every single day on ‘BenefitStreet’ - around ten times the amount lost to benefit fraud– estimated by HMRC to be about £1.2bn a year.

£2.3billion Jobseekers Allowance

£2.86billion Pension Credit

£3.62billion in Housing Benefit

£2.83billion Income Support and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

These are the estimated amounts unclaimed last year by people who are perfectly entitled to claim benefits – including disabled and unemployed people, carers and pensioners.

According to figures quietly released recently by the Department for Work and Pensions - DWP, the total amount unclaimed is likely to be between £11.6bn and £13.23bn a year!

This adds up to tens of millions of pounds unclaimed every single day on ‘Benefit Street’.

There is a common misconception of fraudulent benefit claimants, so what we actually see is that many people are not claiming what they are due.

Likely reasons for people who don’t claim include embarrassment because programmes like Benefit Street and the language of politicians have increased the stigma of being “on benefits”.

Other people find the forms too difficult, are put off by bureaucracy or simply are never told by anyone that they might be entitled to benefits. “I would say the stigma is the main reason people don’t claim,” says a member of the team.

TaxSwag