A couple of times recently1, I have asked, “Who Is managing our government?” Today’s Wall Street Journal has an editorial on this question, and the answer is, whoever is doing it needs to step up their game.
Each year, the GAO, the Government Accountability Office (formerly, the Government Accounting Office) reports an estimate of the amount of “improper payments” made in a number of federal programs. The estimate for 2014, which was released last week, was $124.7 billion (that’s right, billion, not million; we’re talking real money here). The overall error rate increased from 4% in 2013 to 4.5% in 2014, according to the GAO.2
One of the programs with the highest rate of improper payments is the earned-income tax credit, or EITC. The error rate in that program was 27.2%. According to the Journal:
“That means nearly three of 10 dollars were in some way undeserved – and the Treasury Inspector General thinks the real share is closer to four or even five of 10. The GAO says the causes are ‘inability to authenticate requirements, improper income reporting, and inability to verify income before processing returns.’”
Recent Comments