A huge chunk of your tax dollars every year goes straight into the pockets of crooks. Nearly one in three earned income credits (EIC) is fraudulent. And the numbers keep getting bigger every year according to the Government Accountability Office.
Please consider GAO: Feds Made Nearly $1 Trillion in Overpayments Since Fiscal 2003.
Government waste took a significant turn for the worse in fiscal 2014, rising dramatically to $124.7 billion from $105.8 billion in fiscal 2013.
Since fiscal 2003, “cumulative improper payment estimates have totaled almost $1 trillion,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report.
U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified Thursday on the GAO's new findings (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-92T) before the Senate Finance Committee.
The GAO said three programs were most at fault: Medicare, Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
The Earned Income Tax Credit program was the worst offender.
The Internal Revenue Service estimated that the program erroneously handed out $17.7 billion worth of “improper” payments. That amounts to a whopping 27.2 percent of the total $65.2 billion in EITC refund checks that the IRS sent out in fiscal 2014.
Medicare was nearly as bad. The program, which covers about 54 million elderly and disabled beneficiaries, incorrectly doled out $59.9 billion in fiscal 2014, which is about a tenth of its $603 billion budget.
So, one out of every $10 that Medicare spent last year was erroneous, the GAO found. Medicaid made $17.5 billion in mistaken payments out of its $304 billion budget, for a nearly 6 percent error rate.
Besides the EITC program, the federal programs with the highest reported error rates for fiscal 2014 included the School Breakfast program (25.6 percent) and the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act Programs (23.1 percent).
GAO Report
The GAO Report is called Addressing Improper Payments and the Tax Gap Would Improve the Government's Fiscal Position
Inquiring minds may wish to take a look.
Correct Term is Fraud
Writer Elizabeth MacDonald labeled this as “Overpayments” or “Waste“. The GAO labels this as “improper payments“.
Let's be more accurate, it's theft of taxpayer money via fraud.
Moreover the GAO numbers are dramatically understated. Disability fraud, not part of the GAO report, is rampant.
