But the researchers feel that both the two figures are probably underestimated. In the present study it can in effect be noted that the supply and demand for goods and services on the black are systematically higher than the Eurobarometer figures. It is all the more remarkable in that the Belgian university sample is biased (even after weighting) towards an ‘honest’ respondent. It can thus quite safely be concluded that in terms of fraud the ‘hidden part of the iceberg’ is even larger...

The SUBLEC questionnaire also looked into other forms of fraud: incorrect tax returns, income paid ‘under the counter,’ other fiscal fraud concerning investment income and property income, inheritance tax and registration fees. Certain of the responses to these questions are summarised in the table below.

From this it can be deduced that, in particular, beyond the use of the supply of work on the black which has already been mentioned, 2% of employees declare that they have been paid under the counter, 5.6% of social security recipients admit that the benefits they receive do not exactly correspond to that which they are really entitled to, whilst 4.3% of benefit receivers combine their benefits with work on the black. In addition 24% of tax payers acknowledge that their income tax returns are not totally correct.

Because ‘charity begins at home,’ it is easier to draw attention to fraudulent behaviour in others than to admit one’s own ‘weaknesses,’ large or small. The figures are thus systematically higher when the respondents are asked if ‘they know someone’ who commits some kind of fraud. The right hand side of the table thus tends to confirm that real fraud is much more widespread than admitted fraud...