There were 630,000 awards where the overpayment was £1,000 or more, including 40,000 where it exceeded £5,000.
The main snag has been overpayment followed by a hefty reclaim.
As a result, families that received too much (and spent it) then fall on hard times as the revenue recovers the overpayment.
The commission reckons this "overpayment" has landed farmers with an extra 8.5 billion ecu ($9.1 billion).Now Mr Fischler wants farm ministers to cut cereal support prices by another 20%; beef prices by 30%; and the average dairy price by 10%.
The acquisition makes strategic sense but unfortunately looks like another case of overpayment, particularly because Zain's profits have since disappointed.For the many other Indian firms without giant resources and a taste for Russian roulette, a more nuanced approach to dealmaking abroad beckons.
In 2003-04, 1.9m tax-credit awards a third of the total were too high, resulting in a total overpayment of £1.9 billion.
Another approach is the "desk audit", where possible overpayment is identified but the only way to ascertain losses is to sift through heaps of records manually.
But the risk of overpayment in a secondary buy-out is great.
Overpayment for sports and movie rights was largely to blame for the collapse of KirchPayTV.
There is buzz around the new Dodge Challenger, but the tyre-burning coupé will not generate enough sales on its own to make a difference.With Cerberus under pressure from its ill-timed purchase of a 51% stake in GM's financial-services arm and its apparent overpayment for United Rentals (a deal it is trying to unwind), it is unlikely, and possibly unable, to put in extra money.
As RiskMetrics points out, it could lead to overpayment for assets, fee structures that encourage big investments with lots of debt, and accounting policies that can exaggerate performance.
