US Government Gives $100 BILLION in Improper Payments Every YearLily Dane The improper payments came in the forms of tax credits to families that didnt qualify, unemployment benefits to people who had jobs and medical payments for treatments that might not have been necessary. In 2013, improper payments totaled approximately $106 billion and experts say that figure could actually be higher. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla, chairs the House Oversight subcommittee on government operations. He told the AP the amounts are staggering: The government-run website Payment Accuracy explains how improper payments occur: High-error federally-administered programs include: Causes of improper payments fall into three categories: documentation and administrative errors, authentication and medical necessity errors, and verification errors. The government claims most errors are made unintentionally and do not represent fraud. Guess which source of improper payments is the largest? According to agency estimates, the winner is government health care programs: Most of the payments were deemed improper because they were issued without proper documentation, said Shantanu Agrawal, a deputy administrator for the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services. In some cases, the paperwork didnt verify that services were medically necessary. Payments deemed improper under these circumstances tend to be the result of documentation and coding errors made by the provider as opposed to payments made for inappropriate claims, Agrawal said. (source) Medicaid improper payments exceeded $14.4 BILLION in 2013. And this program is expanding under Obamacare! Naturally, many of the improper payments come from the IRS. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said the issue is important to the IRS, and that it is an ongoing battle: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a major culprit here it paid out $14.5 BILLION in improper payments last year, which represents 24% of all payments under that program: People get credits they dont deserve by claiming children they dont have or misreporting their income or filing status, Koskinen said. Koskinen also said it will be challenging for the IRS to make improvements due to its lack of adequate funding: The IRS says its 2014 budget of $11.29 billion is $850 million below the funding it received in 2010, despite the surging fraud and identity theft that is leading to many improper payments. How is the IRS going to administer the ACA if they already cant handle their workload? Larger programs typically result in less oversight and more corruption. If the agency cant run on a $11.29 BILLION budget and is rampant with issues already, how is it going to manage the monstrous behemoth that is Obamacare? When the IRS scandal broke last year, Dr. Ron Paul said the following about the agency: While it is important for Congress to investigate the most recent scandal and ensure all involved are held accountable, we cannot pretend that the problem is a few bad actors. The very purpose of the IRS is to transfer wealth from one group to another while violating our liberties in the process, thus the only way Congress can protect our freedoms is to repeal the income tax and shutter the doors of the IRS once and for all. Although government waste is not limited to the IRS, abolishing it would be a good start, as the agency is bloated with power and corruption and has a disturbing history of wasting of taxpayer money (money that many would say the agency has no right to in the first place). The need to repeal Obamacare is becoming more and more apparent as well. Perhaps the federal government-operated Payment Accuracy website said it best: There you have it straight from the horses mouth. Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. Her goal is to help people to Wake the Flock Up! 