United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Accounting and Information Management Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1997-03-04 monographic deposited born digital 15 p. GA 1.13:T-AIMD-97-54 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-54 P0b002ee1803a33c1 f:ai97054t DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-54 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-54 T-AIMD-97-54 Internal controls Financial management systems Risk management Debt collection Accounts receivable Health care programs Computer security Congressional oversight Federal social security programs Program abuses IRS Tax System Modernization Program Supplemental Security Income Program HCFA Medicare Transaction System IRS Compliance 2000 Initiative Medicare Program IRS FedState Electronic Filing Program Testimony AIMD Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed major government programs and operations GAO has identified as high-risk areas, focusing on high-risk areas related to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Medicare and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) overall, legislative and agency actions have resulted in progress toward fixing these high-risk areas and establishing a solid foundation to help ensure greater progress; (2) however, because these areas involve long-standing problems which are difficult to fix, additional corrective measures are necessary to remove the high-risk designation; (3) GAO's audits of the IRS' financial statements, however, have identified many significant weaknesses in IRS' accounting for revenue and accounts receivable, as well as for funds provided to carry out IRS' operations; (4) IRS has improved payroll processing and accounting for administrative operations and is working on solutions to revenue and accounts receivable accounting problems; (5) in addition, IRS is hampered in efficiently and effectively managing its huge inventory of accounts receivable due to inadequate management information; (6) further, while IRS' efforts to reduce filing fraud have resulted in some success, especially through more rigid screening in the electronic filing program, this continues to be a high-risk area; (7) the Customs Service has made considerable progress in correcting major management and organizational structure weaknesses GAO pointed to in its 1992 high-risk report; (8) Medicare, the nation's second largest social program, is inherently vulnerable to and a perpetually attractive target for exploitation; (9) the Congress and the President have been seeking to introduce changes to Medicare to help control program costs, which were $197 billion in fiscal year 1996; (10) a newly designated high-risk area involves overpayments in the SSI program, which provided about $22 billion in federal benefits to recipients between January 1, 1996, and October 31, 1996; (11) one root cause of SSI overpayments is the Social Security Administration's difficulty in corroborating financial eligibility information that program beneficiaries self report and that affects their benefit levels; (12) in September 1996, GAO reported that during the previous 2 years, serious information security control weaknesses had been reported for 10 of the 15 largest federal agencies; (13) GAO had made dozens of recommendations for improvement to individual agencies, and they have started acting on may of them; and (14) the year 2000 problem poses the high risk that computer systems throughout government will fail to run or malfunction because computer * https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-54/html/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-54.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-54/pdf/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-54.pdf GAO/T-AIMD-97-54 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-54 Testimony GAO/T-AIMD-97-54; High-Risk Areas: Benefits to Be Gained by Continued Emphasis on Addressing High-Risk Areas; Internal controls Financial management systems Risk management Debt collection Accounts receivable Health care programs Computer security Congressional oversight Federal social security programs Program abuses IRS Tax System Modernization Program Supplemental Security Income Program HCFA Medicare Transaction System IRS Compliance 2000 Initiative Medicare Program IRS FedState Electronic Filing Program