When is benefit fraud not benefit fraud? When it's committed by "hardworking" people, of course.

The news that 165,000 child benefit-claiming parents have failed to register for self-assessment does not come as a surprise. In fact, it reminded me of a message I was sent on Twitter a few months ago, a guide to media style when referring to benefits: "Poor people CLAIM benefits. Middle-class people RECEIVE benefits." And according to the recent news, a lot of middle-class people will have received benefits that they aren't entitled to any more. But lots of them, it seems, aren't in any particular hurry to pay them back. It's hard to imagine these stragglers, if they don't stump up the money they owe, being called benefit fraudsters. When you think of someone "scrounging off the state", it probably doesn't call to mind the people on more than £50k, does it?

While I fundamentally disagree with one important aspect of the new child benefit rules on principle – that they should be based on the highest earner's wage, rather than the total household income – I do agree that a person earning almost £1,000 a week does not need an additional £20.30 from the taxpayer's rapidly diminishing pot.

As we are constantly told by those justifying the savage cuts to the welfare support system in this country, there is no money. There is no money for teaching assistants, or for maintaining fire and rescue services without making drastic cuts – sorry – efficiency savings. There is (apparently) no money for the basic services that underpin a functional society. The things that should be publicly owned and available to all, like the Post Office and the NHS, are being sold off, while the investment bankers that sold us all up the river quietly took their bonuses as a thank-you for doing so.

Even Lin Homer, HMRC chief executive, telling them to "get off their backsides" hasn't spurred them into action. Does that phrase sound familiar? Because to me, it seemed rather like the tired old rhetoric that the government employs towards those without work, the poor, or anyone else deemed generally unworthy by the Eton identisuits. It could have been David Cameron's motto, as he launched his "earning or learning" plan that could see all benefits taken away from people under the age of 25: "They need to get off their backsides and do something."

But in a stark contrast to families being evicted from their homes by local councils for failing to pay the bedroom tax – sorry – spare room subsidy, form-shy high-earning parents are instead being given a wagged finger and a gentle reminder to file their tax assessments by the 31 January. If they do so, then "any penalties will be disregarded".

While certain tabloid newspapers are busy demonising those that are out of work, or even the working poor, based on their appearance, weight, or number of children they have, nobody seems keen to point the finger at the "hardworking people". And that's the issue. Those on more than £50,000 a year are seen to be contributing in a "work hard and get on" society, where greed is God and profit comes before everything. But the government can't in all conscience turf people out of the homes that they have lived in for years, while turning a blind eye to the rich who are quietly holding on to their child benefit, or smuggling their taxes away in the Cayman Islands.

If this government is serious about tackling fraud, it should look in the murky waters of its inner circle first. (And then charge the taxpayer to get them cleaned. And add a duck house.) Because what's a little fraud, when you've got aspiration, and you've worked hard, and got on? It's fewer teachers, and fewer police officers, and less care support for the disabled and vulnerable. But you carry on, all 165,000 of you, because you clearly really need that £20 a week more than the seriously disabled woman needs £14 for a spare bedroom for her overnight carer.