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The Telegraph:

The European Commission has fined Britain [i.e. the taxpayers] £74.5 million over the late payment of subsidies that pushed many farmers to the brink of financial collapse.

The penalty was imposed because the Government failed to pay farmers until over a year after they were due to receive the money in 2005.

The Rural Payments Agency was dogged by administrative and computer errors as Britain failed to meet the EU’s statutory deadline for getting subsidy cheques to farmers.

…

A spokesman for Defra said: “This decision relates overwhelmingly to the 2005 SPS payments that were made in the 2007 EU financial year. Successive ministers have apologised for the problems caused with the implementation of the Single Payment Scheme in 2005.”

Also, a good point by Tim Worstall:

We taxpayers get gouged to provide the support to the farmers in the first place. We taxpayers get gouged to pay the bureaucrats to administer the payments. We taxpayers get gouged to buy the new computer systems for them to play with. And when the new computer systems and the bureaucrats screw up we taxpayers get gouged again to pay the fines? …

Sorry!