- Data provided by the Department of Employment of the Basque Government indicate that among citizens who misperceive the Income Guarantee Income (IGR) there is little fraud, and that in most cases it is due to delays in administrative processing. These payments are usually returned later. In 2023, EUR 55 million was mispaid in this way. Despite this, the figure is ten times lower than that of tax fraud, as in the CAV the forced haciendas detected EUR 616 million last year.
Certain parties and media have developed the citizens receiving the IGR by detecting the existence of numerous cases of fraud. But the latest data offered by the Basque Government shows that it is quite the opposite. What is more, incomes received are largely due to the administration.
Vicelehendakari and Minister of Economy, Labour and Employment of the Basque Government, Mikel Torres, answered a question from pp spokesman in the Basque Parliament, Laura Garrido. According to this report, Lanbide paid EUR 55.5 million badly in 2023, compared with EUR 28.4 million last year. For example, last year alone in tax fraud, forced haciendas were seized of EUR 616 million.
The total budget for the IGR amounted to EUR 365 million last year, well below that for other items. The Department of Security, for example, only spends twice as much on the Ertzainas: €710 million.
With the adoption last year of the new IGR law, in addition to the cuts, stricter controls have been put in place on the citizens who receive this income. Moreover, since 2022, the Minimum Vital Income (IMI) has also become the responsibility of the Basque Government.
In this regard, Torres explained that the increase in the number of defaults was primarily due to the joint collection of BGDS and RGI, but not to citizen fraud, but to the resolution and approval of BGDS requests that were “pending”. That is to say, the delays and, consequently, the procedural errors of Lanbide, have led to this duplication.
“Undue payments are gradually recovered through different formulas,” says the counsellor in his response, among others, compensated on the IGR payroll or with voluntary returns, so that “debts are recovered over time”.
Another reason why the IGR is perceived incorrectly (60%) is that the citizen starts working and that the last payment is made between communication and processing, which is then returned
The right and the media, fanning the distorted image
Another reason why the IGR is perceived incorrectly is that the citizen starts working (60%) and that the last payment is made in the communication and processing period, which is then returned. Death, the non-constitution of the family unit, the admission of two people to a family, living outside Álava, Gipuzkoa or Bizkaia... and other similar hardly have an incidence, are less than 1%.
On more than one occasion, however, there has been a debate on the suspicions of fraud in the IGR, in many cases with the right deliberately open both on the street and in the media. Pp has called for more control measures in the last Basque and police regional elections to prevent "fraud", and now it seems that Garrido's questions in the Basque Parliament are also in the same direction.
The newspapers of the Vocento group have revisited the issue in depth. On his cover, El Diario Vasco stresses that the money that comes to light "with new control measures" is double, and El Correo points out that "fraud is double".