Introduction

Households can come to owe their governments money in a variety of different ways. The ways that the peoples consider in this chapter are overpayments from cash benefit programs, local taxes, criminal justice fines and fees, and student loans. The collection of benefit over-payments is intended to maintain the integrity of benefit programs. Criminal justice fines and fees discourage or compensate for criminal behavior. Student loans improve post-secondary access for low-income households. The difficulty in raising taxes has increased the pressure on governments to raise revenues through alternative sources, including intensified efforts to collect existing taxes and benefit overpayments and criminal justice fines and fees. The most brutal logic of austerity thus seeks to reduce the public expenditure wherever possible; the social welfare systems and the local government become targets due to their large presence in the central government budget.