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GAO Report Examines Social Security Overpayments
Source:
tax-news.com
- Dec 20, 2012
by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington
19 December 2012
A report prepared by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program has pointed out that its administrator, the Social Security Administration (SSA), has taken steps to prevent and detect overpayments, but that there is much room for improvement.
The SSI program provides cash assistance to disabled and aged individuals with limited income and assets. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that, in fiscal year 2013, the program will make payments to more than 8m people at a cost to the federal government of about USD53bn.
In fiscal year 2011, the SSA reported that overpayments to program recipients exceeded USD3.7bn, or about 7.3% of all payments, and an increase from the previous year. SSA data also showed that the amount of SSI debt recovered was less than half the amount of new debt detected.
In response to these overpayment statistics, Erik Paulsen (R - Minnesota), the Acting Chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources, which has jurisdiction over the SSI program, commissioned the GAO to review the major factors associated with SSI overpayments, what actions the SSA had taken to address them, and what was known about SSA’s recovery of overpayments from SSI recipients, including those not currently receiving SSI benefits.
READ MORE:
http://www.tax-news.com/news/GAO_Report_Examines_Social_Security_Overpayments____58847.html
Category: General Business
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