Sometimes employees will deliberately overstate the amount of materials and/or labor that should be required to complete a job. The difference between inflated and realistic standards is known as: Multiple Choice Budget slack. Making the numbers. Lowballing. Cooking the books.

the answer is Budget Slack

Budget slack refers to the overestimation of costs or the underestimation of revenues.

this is (in a way) creative accounting, mostly done to evade taxes on revenues and to gain tax benefits on costs. usually, such malpractices under estimate profits and show losses, but as the taxes paid are lower and the "real profits" are higher, the management can save alot of money this way.

in many countries, there are laws that punish those who engage in such activities severely.