United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Health, Education, and Human Services Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1998-04-30 monographic deposited born digital 34 p. GA 1.13:HEHS-98-76 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-98-76 P0b002ee1803714cc f:he98076 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-HEHS-98-76 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-HEHS-98-76 HEHS-98-76 Social security benefits Internal controls Overpayments Retirement pensions Government retirement benefits Data integrity Federal/state relations Letter Report HEHS Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed: (1) how well the Social Security Administration (SSA) administers the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) benefit payment provisions of the Social Security Act; and (2) the options to improve any administrative deficiencies.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) from several internal studies of SSA's administration of the Government Pension Offset and WEP provisions, GAO estimates that the agency made overpayments costing the social security trust funds between $160 million and $355 million from 1978 to about 1995; (2) weaknesses in its internal controls are a primary cause; (3) in implementing the benefit reduction provisions for retired federal employees, SSA could make better use of available information; (4) although SSA reviews information on pension payments to federal retirees to ensure that it has properly applied the Government Pension Offset provisions, it does not use that information to ensure the appropriate application of the WEP provision; (5) in implementing the benefit reduction provisions on retired state and local government workers, SSA relies on the accuracy of information provided by the retirees regarding whether they receive, or will in the future receive, a pension that results from noncovered employment; (6) SSA has not developed any independent source of this pension information; (7) thus, it cannot verify the accuracy of the self-reported information, a basic and effective internal control practice; (8) although SSA managers have long suspected that its controls needed strengthening, they have not yet decided on a way to improve them; (9) several courses of action could improve SSA's internal controls; (10) for retired federal employees, SSA could periodically use the pension data it already receives from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to check whether WEP has been properly applied; (11) for state and local government retirees, SSA needs to obtain independently reported pension data to adequately control its payments for the Government Pension Offset and WEP reductions; (12) both retirement systems that pay benefits for noncovered employment and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which receives reports of each taxpayer's pension income from individual retirement systems, are potential sources of pension data; and (13) both sources have various merits and drawbacks. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-98-76/html/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-98-76.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-98-76/pdf/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-98-76.pdf GAO/HEHS-98-76 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-98-76 Letter Report GAO/HEHS-98-76; Social Security: Better Payment Controls for Benefit Reduction Provisions Could Save Millions; Social security benefits Internal controls Overpayments Retirement pensions Government retirement benefits Data integrity Federal/state relations