Improper Payments: Inspector General Reporting of Agency Compliance under the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act

Improper payments such as duplicate or erroneous payments, payments to ineligible recipients, or payments for ineligible services have been a long-standing challenge of the federal government and have annually totaled billions of dollars.1 For fiscal year 2013, federal agencies reported an estimated $105.8 billion in improper payments, a decrease of $1.3 billion from the prior year revised estimate of $107.1 billion.2 Based on our review of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) data, the $105.8 billion estimate was attributable to 84programs across 18 agencies (see enc. I).3Fiscal year 2013 marked the 10th year of implementation of the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (IPIA),Five programs accounted for approximately$82.9 billion, or 78 percent of the total improper payments estimate in fiscal year 2013 (see enc.II for a list of the five programs with the largest estimates for fiscal years 2011 through 2013).