With many U.S. households receiving stimulus checks over the past year, alongside hundreds of billions of dollars of relief sent to businesses and other organizations, the scope for error or misappropriation has grown. Working to reduce all improper payments is paramount.
Preventing and understanding the root causes of improper payments that result in monetary loss are a high priority for the federal government. While there is still progress to be made, the federal government has continued to make substantial strides towards enhancing efforts in identifying methods for the detection, prevention and recovery of improper payments.
Examining improper payments has created an opportunity to develop counter-acting tools to address the issue, and has opened the door for public and private exchange of information, experiences and learnings.
Taxpayers expect efficiency and minimized wastage, and ensuring taxpayer dollars are properly allocated is a critical function of the federal government—which has caused improper payments to become an elevated concern.
Improper payments negatively impact profitability. This friction leads to losses within the private sector, and can result in higher taxes and wasteful spending in the public sector. Although not all improper payments are a result of fraud, they all have the potential to erode trust and question why more is not being done.
Reshaping strategies for prevention and reduction of improper payments
Here are three primary conditions that are contributing to improvements in addressing improper payments in the public and private sector.