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The Treasury Department said its new payment verification process identified and returned 13,500 federal payments worth $175 million that otherwise would have gone to deceased individuals during fiscal year 2026. Treasury also expanded access to its Do Not Pay screening program and made bank account and taxpayer identification checks fully operational on Sept. 30.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Oct. 6 that a new payment verification process identified and returned 13,500 federal payments worth $175 million that would have gone to deceased individuals during fiscal year 2026. The checks were part of a broader set of controls Treasury says it introduced to catch fraud and improper payments before federal funds are disbursed.
From its launch through the end of fiscal year 2026, the process screened more than 1.1 billion federal payments with a combined value of $3.7 trillion, Treasury said in a press release. The department said safeguards were designed to verify critical information before payments went out while protecting legitimate payments. The release did not provide a breakdown of the $175 million by program, payment type or recipient agency.
Treasury also piloted checks of bank account ownership and whether taxpayer identification numbers associated with payments were present and correctly formatted. The department said these checks let it identify and return payments that did not meet the verification requirements before funds were disbursed. The capabilities became fully operational on Sept. 30, the final day of the fiscal year.
A separate effort expanded federal agencies’ access to Do Not Pay, a Treasury program offering data and tools to check identity and eligibility. Treasury said the share of federal programs with access to its data sources rose from 4% at the end of fiscal year 2025 to 99% in fiscal year 2026. The program screened 2.3 billion records in fiscal 2026, up from 641 million the prior year, and Treasury added nine datasets. Those record totals describe Do Not Pay screening; Treasury did not say they represent unique people or blocked payments.
How Payment Checks Protect Public Funds
The reported $175 million represents payments Treasury says were stopped before they reached deceased individuals. The scale of screening also shows how the department is applying identity and payment information across federal disbursements, rather than relying only on checks tied to individual programs. If effective, such controls can limit improper outflows and reduce the need to recover funds after they have been paid.
The figures do not establish how much of the flagged money would otherwise have been permanently lost, or how much of the broader screening effort prevented other kinds of improper payments. Treasury reported returned payments and screening volumes, but its release did not give a full accounting of later recoveries, administrative costs, or error rates. The totals provide a measure of activity and identified payments, not a complete estimate of net savings.
The expansion of Do Not Pay access from 4% to 99% means nearly all federal programs had access to the system’s data sources by the end of fiscal 2026, according to Treasury. That wider reach could make identity and eligibility checks available across more programs. It also makes the quality and accuracy of the underlying data relevant: Treasury’s announcement did not describe how agencies handle disputed matches or measure cases in which an eligible payment is delayed.
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Treasury’s Wider Fraud Controls
The payment verification process was one of several changes Treasury described for fiscal year 2026. The department said it added safeguards ahead of disbursement and separately expanded Do Not Pay access and datasets. The release presents these efforts as parts of a broader approach to identifying improper payments before money leaves the government.
In August, the White House announced The Fraud Ledger, a website at fraud.gov that tracks actions taken by its fraud task force and dollar amounts recovered through those actions. That site is a separate public tracking effort. Treasury’s Oct. 6 figures concern payments screened and returned under its payment verification process, as well as records screened through Do Not Pay; the announcement does not say that the $175 million is a figure reported by The Fraud Ledger.
The reported totals cover a fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2026. Treasury said it expects to onboard most federal programs that still lack Do Not Pay access in early fiscal year 2027. Its announcement did not name those remaining programs or specify how many are still outside the system.
“Treasury continues to transform how the federal government protects taxpayer dollars by using better data, stronger controls and advanced technology to stop fraud and improper payments before money goes out the door.”
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in the department’s press release
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What Treasury Has Not Detailed
Treasury’s announcement does not identify the agencies or payment programs associated with the 13,500 returned payments, or explain how the department determined that each intended recipient was deceased. It also does not describe whether recipients, estates or agencies can challenge a match, or how quickly any mistaken hold would be corrected.
The department did not provide a comparison with prior years for payments to deceased individuals, a cost estimate for the new checks, or a net savings calculation. The $175 million is the value of payments identified and returned, according to Treasury; it should not be read as a measured reduction in fraud losses across all federal programs. Details about false matches, payment delays and outcomes after a payment is returned were not included in the release.
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More Programs Set to Join
Treasury expects to onboard most of the remaining federal programs to Do Not Pay in early fiscal year 2027. The department has not provided a date for that work or named the programs awaiting access. Its next updates may clarify the pace of onboarding and how widely agencies use the newly operational bank account and taxpayer identification checks.
Further reporting on program-level results, disputed matches and payment corrections would help show how the safeguards perform after their first full fiscal year. Treasury has not announced when it will publish such details.
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Key Questions
How much did Treasury say it stopped from going to deceased individuals?
Treasury said it identified and returned 13,500 payments worth $175 million that would have gone to deceased individuals during fiscal year 2026.
How many payments did the new process screen?
From its launch through the end of fiscal year 2026, Treasury said the process screened more than 1.1 billion federal payments totaling $3.7 trillion.
What is Do Not Pay?
Do Not Pay is a Treasury program that gives federal programs data and tools to help check identity and eligibility. Treasury said access expanded from 4% of federal programs at the end of fiscal 2025 to 99% in fiscal 2026.
Are the bank account and taxpayer identification checks operational?
Treasury said checks for bank account ownership and the presence and format of taxpayer identification numbers became fully operational on Sept. 30, 2026.
Did Treasury explain how many flagged payments were errors or later corrected?
No. The announcement did not give details about disputed matches, false flags, payment delays or corrections. It also did not provide a program-by-program breakdown of the returned payments.
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