The Government Needs To Do a Better Job of Collecting Amounts Owed by the Public

Government accounts receivable are generally identified as assets from the time transactions giving rise to a claim are complete until payment is received or a claim is determined to be uncollectible. Payments usually are required within 30 days from billing, and interest charges may be levied if payments are not made when due. The public's debt to the federal government has increased from $10.4 billion in 1973 to $14.6 billion in 1977.

Errors amounting to $1.5 billion in accounts receivable were identified at 12 agencies. Problems included failure to include unrecovered beneficiary overpayments as accounts receivable, failure to include amounts because of delays, amounts shown as due for the wrong time period, overstatements due to errors, and amounts already collected shown as due. Most agencies did not take prompt and agressive collection action on delinquent accounts or adhere sufficiently to prescribed collection procedures. Other problems involved inadequate identification and follow-up action on delinquent accounts, lack of knowledge relating to collection actions, lack of documentation in claims files, and failure to take required action in referring delinquent receivables for further action. During fiscal year 1976, five federal agencies wrote off claims of about $200 million. There were inconsistencies in agencies' practices relating to charging interest. Improvements are needed in accounting systems and financial management.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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