December 03,2013

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Julia Lawless, Antonia Ferrier, 202.224.4515

Hatch on Treasury IG Report on ObamaCare Tax Credit Fraud

Utah Senator Says, “The ObamaCare premium subsidies are a fraudsters dream come true. As TIGTA found today, the very nature of these credits - pay first, verify a person’s income later - will lead to potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of improper payments and could put millions of American’s personal information at risk.”

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, issued the following statement today after the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) issued a report that found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has an inadequate system in place for preventing fraudulent Affordable Care Act premium subsidy payments from occurring and that people’s personal information would be at risk:

“The ObamaCare premium subsidies are a fraudsters dream come true.   As TIGTA found today, the very nature of these credits – pay first, verify a person’s income later - will lead to potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of improper payments and could put millions of American’s personal information at risk.  While the IRS needs to do more to ensure more safeguards are put in place, the fact is that the problems with these tax credits are deeply rooted in the law itself.  I fear the IRS will never be fully capable of ensuring that these refundable tax credits got to those who are truly eligible.”

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