The Fiscal Service provides payment integrity services through its Payment Integrity Center of Excellence (PICOE). As a result of PICOE’s payment integrity services, in Fiscal Year 2021, $250 million in improper payments were prevented on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). 

 

The PICOE team in collaboration with IRS and FEMA  to support applicant and decedent identity and eligibility determinations for its COVID-19 Funeral Assistance Program. This partnership resulted in prevention of $41.4 million in fraudulent payments and identification of $6.3 million for further investigation. The IRS and Fiscal Service partnered to convert 70.2 million payments from check to direct deposit with a 99.6% accuracy rate, through use of Fiscal Service’s AVS and Cross-Government Data Analytics, avoiding $33 million in check production costs. Additionally, the IIRS and Fiscal Service expanded use of services and solutions to mitigate fraud, identity theft and improve customer experience through its Taxpayer Protection Program (TPP) Identity Theft Treatment (IDT) stream. As a result of this partnership, over $3 billion that had been flagged for suspected identity theft was verified and released to payees.

 

The teams’s efforts greatly benefited the providing tax refunds to taxpayers faster and accurately through the Taxpayer Protection Program (TPP) Identity Theft Treatment (IDT) program, which expedite the release and payment of over $3 billion that had been flagged for suspected identity theft was verified and released to payees. And ensured that federal aid associated with pandemic relief related services are provided to those eligible and entitled securely, quickly, and accurately.