Commentary on Sections Part 5: Social security: General 36C Loss of working tax credit for repeated benefit fraud
621.Subsection (1) of new section 36C lists conditions which must be satisfied for a loss of benefit sanction for repeated benefit fraud to apply. Where these are fulfilled, subsection (3) provides that other than for a relevant offence, working tax credit will not be paid during the disqualification period. In the case of a joint claim, this will apply to one or the other person.
622.The effect of subsection (2) is that persons convicted of a relevant offence defined in section 6B(14) of the Social Security Fraud Act 2001 (as inserted by subsection (5) of section 118) are subject to the three year loss of benefit sanction under section 36A, irrespective of the number of previous offences.
623.Subsection (4) allows HMRC to make regulations which prescribe how working tax payments to a couple may be reduced rather than withdrawn.
624.Subsection (5) of new section 36C defines the disqualification period for the purposes of this section. The disqualification period is the amount of time the benefit can be disqualified for and the length depends on the reason why the person was disqualified, and begins at a prescribed time (which will be defined in regulations). Subsection (6) of new section 36C defines what the relevant periods (time for which the benefit can be disqualified) are in relation to this. Subsection 6(a) of new section 36C introduces a three year loss of benefit sanction for claimants who are convicted of a benefit offence preceded by two previous offences (disqualifying events). It only applies where the earliest offence occurs within five years of the second offence (which must have occurred within five years of the current offence). Subsection 6(b) of new section 36C introduces a 26 week loss of benefit sanction for all other offence convictions.
625.Subsection (8) of new section 36C means that where a person is convicted of more than one offence in a set of proceedings, those offences are only counted once for the purposes of section 36C under the TCA 2002.
626.Subsections (9) and (10) of new section 36C give the Treasury the power to amend the period of sanction by order, and to specify different periods depending on previous disqualifying events.