3: Fraud, Waste & Abuse

Use technology to combat fraud, waste and abuse.

Other Information:

Federal payment and tax collection programs are complex and touch every person and company in the United States. There are trillions of dollars involved in these transactions and citizens have come to expect that payments or tax refunds will be issued promptly. Unfortunately, this creates a climate where fraud, waste and abuse is likely to occur. Fortunately, there are many technologies that can streamline programs to cut waste and improve services, identify fraud and abuse to prevent improper payments and collect the proper amount of taxes owed. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reports the "tax gap" of uncollected taxes to be $385 billion and improper payments made by the federal government to exceed $100 billion a year. Accelerating the modernization of key IT tools could drive a 10% reduction in these losses to the U.S. Treasury. Combined, this loss reduction could potentially decrease the deficit by almost $50 billion a year as depicted in Exhibit 2. This is just one example that demonstrates the impact of leveraging IT to decrease fraud, waste and abuse. Healthcare and other areas can reap similar benefits.

Stakeholder(s):

• U.S. Treasury


• Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

Objective(s):

1

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