The most common fraudulent actions that Slovaks have engaged in or experienced are forged bills and documentation aimed at reporting higher costs, according to a survey conducted by the GfK agency that was released on May 4, the TASR newswire reported.
Other quite common frauds, according to the survey results, involve prescription drugs and lying on mortgage applications where Slovaks state higher income or lower expenditures than is true.
The survey was conducted in April on a sample of 500 respondents, 85 percent of whom said they had seen at least one fraudulent activity in their lives. The most common frauds were in the areas of taxes, insurance and public administration – with women and older people condemning these transgressions the most among those surveyed.
A total of 22 percent of the respondents saw nothing wrong with taking actions to lower their tax bases. "More than 96 percent of Slovaks think that if there is an opportunity then we (Slovaks) will surely or probably seize it," said Dušan Očkaik of GfK, as quoted by TASR.
The respondents stated that it is mostly insurance companies, the tax authorities and banks that try to uncover fraud. Only 13 percent of the surveyed Slovaks believe that the public administration makes a sincere effort to investigate fraud even though they believe the level of corruption among government officials is extraordinarily high, TASR wrote.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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