Legislative Blog

J.B. Williams, J.D.

Fraud on Taxpayers

More fraud handled administratively

Brief Summary of Federal

This should be a fairly limited bills area for management the overall structures like highways, military, federal buildings, federal laws, and the like. However it has become the micro manager of all micro managers. They get involved in areas that no federal government should be involved in, and shift more power upward. This has led to each party trying to run over the other party in the eyes of the voters, all the while doing everything possible to maintain their power. They do this by holding onto all of the money, and claiming they know best how it should be spent. But they run debts so badly that no one should be looking to them as an example of anything other than the way to overspend and go further into debt.

Fraud on Taxpayers Summary

It changed the name from Program Fraud Civil Remedies to Administrative False Claims. I understand the need to shift them to being handled administratively, but not sure why Fraud is being changed to False. Fraud is still being committed.

Nicely, while the amount is being raised from $150,000 to $1,000,000 (Million); they are also adding in language to automatically adjust for inflation in the future.

Any amounts collected are first applied to costs incurred in doing the investigation, including court costs. Those funds are to be placed in the appropriations for the Federal entity that incurred the costs. Any funds collected after costs are covered, are to be placed in the Treasury of the United States. This will prevent funds from being doled out for other uses that were not originally intended. For instance, there has been a great deal of fraud in the funds provided for COVID related issues. Recovery of those funds would mean that the Federal entity would have COVID funds post COVID being a stated emergency. Now those funds will go back to the general Treasury fund instead. Permitting Congress to determine where they are used.

Annually there needs to be a report stating the number of cases of fraud, their outcome (if finalized), whether there were appeals of any decisions, the number of on-going matters, etc. And the agency must notify the Department of Justice at least 30 days prior to entering into any settlements.

A fairly simple bill that makes dollar amount adjustments and provides for future automatic adjustments. Hopefully this results in streamlining fraud claims, and re-cooping dollars sent more efficiently. There is always the worry that this will lead to less transparency, but hopefully the annual reports will be readily available to the public at large.

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J.B. Williams, J.D.

4,312 federal laws were passed from 1995 through December 2016.
Along with 88,819 federal rules and regulations.