73 million crowns worth of social welfare abused in 2006

Social welfare benefits amounting to 73 million crowns (or more than 3.5 million U.S. dollars) was abused last year, the weekly Profit reported. Inspections carried out by Labour Offices in the Czech Republic revealed that in 2006, social benefits were illegitimately drawn in more than 34,000 cases, most of them being child allowances. One of the goals of the fiscal reform recently approved by the lower house is to reduce the abuse of social benefits, some of which should be replaced by the so-called 'negative tax'.