Graphs at a glance: Confiscation orders recover just 0.35% of ill-gotten gains. Crooks keep £99.65 in every crooked £100.

It is not just taxes paid by the little people that are avoided by the big people. 

Nor is it just the big energy companies and banks that find it child's play to run rings around their poodlish regulators.

In 2012 the government's policy of pursuing people with no money rather than people with money to hide resulted in the prosecution of 9,863 people for benefits fraud and only 617 for tax fraud. Even though according to the National Fraud Authority tax fraud (£14 billion) is seven times greater than benefits fraud (£1.9 billion).

Such favours are not restricted to the unconvicted. A National Audit Office report published in December 2013 reveals that British courts follow the example of British taxmen, pursuing little crooks while letting the big crooks scarper with their ill-gotten capital gains: 

"The annual amount of fraud perpetrated by criminals in England and Wales has been estimated by the National Fraud Authority as some £52 billion. On this basis, it has been further estimated that, out of every £100 generated by the criminal economy, £99.65 was kept by the perpetrators."

While confiscation orders of upto £1,000 are almost all collected, larger amounts manage to do a runner. Big crooks have places offshore to hide their 'earnings', and banks of well paid lawyers to camouflage their villainy: