IRS Watchdog: $67 Million Missing from Obamacare Slush Fund

[mystery-ak]

http://www.atr.org/irs-watchdog-million-missing-obamacare-slush-a7886

IRS Watchdog: $67 Million Missing from Obamacare Slush Fund
The IRS is unable to account for $67 million spent from a slush fund established for Obamacare implementation, according to a TIGTA report released today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The IRS is unable to account for $67 million spent from a slush fund established for Obamacare implementation, according to a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report released today.

The “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was tucked into Obamacare in order to give the IRS money to enforce the tax provisions of the healthcare law.  The fund, totaling some $1 billion of taxpayer money, was used to roll out enforcement mechanisms for the approximately 50 tax provisions of Obamacare.

According to the report:  “Specifically, the IRS did not account for or attempt to quantify approximately $67 million [from the slush fund] of indirect ACA costs incurred for Fiscal Years 2010 through 2012.”

The report also found several other abuses of taxpayer funds, including:

Travel abuse:  The report states, “Specifically, we identified 38 IRS employees in two judgmentally selected business units whose travel was charged to the HIRIF in FY 2012, but no portion of their salary and related benefits was charged to the HIRIF.” In short, the IRS was not making sure that employee travel reimbursements had anything to do with the purpose of the fund. This is not the first time that IRS employee travel has created a scandal for the agency.

1,272 IRS Obamacare enforcement agents: The report estimates that total slush fund spending cost taxpayers the equivalent of 1,272 new full time IRS agents.

The IRS requested an additional 859 IRS Obamacare enforcement agents for Fiscal Year 2013: According to the report, “The IRS informed us that it requested $360 million and 859 FTEs for FY 2013 to continue implementation of the ACA. However, the IRS did not receive this requested amount for FY 2013.”

To add insult to injury, the IRS has told the Inspector General that it will comply with the recommendations made in the report; unfortunately, the slush fund has been fully spent, making that promise meaningless.

[Cincinnatus]

I don't know if this is the first report of malfeasance connected with ObamaCare but I can absolutely assure you it will not be the last, not even close. This is the present state with Medicare:

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, has been tracking improper payments and fraud for years.

"Medicare and Medicaid are rife with fraud," he asserts. "There is so much fraud in these programs it's almost laughable -- in part because over the past few decades, there have been reports, and commissions, and dozens of these reports from the Government Accountability Office and so forth saying that there's massive fraud in these programs. But Medicare and Medicaid, not only do they not do an adequate job of fighting this fraud; they don't even do an adequate job of measuring this fraud." - See more at: http://www.onenewsnow.com/business/2013/01/30/so-much-fraud-in-medicare-medicaid#.UkNqJJjn-cw

Just wait until the billions, possibly trillions, are allocated for ObamaCare. We will long for the days of Medicare fraud.

[Oceander]

I don't know if this is the first report of malfeasance connected with ObamaCare but I can absolutely assure you it will not be the last, not even close. This is the present state with Medicare:

Just wait until the billions, possibly trillions, are allocated for ObamaCare. We will long for the days of Medicare fraud.

Indeed we will.  And, of course, in the name of "fighting" that fraud the government will force us to reveal more and more private information about ourselves so they can "find" the fraudsters.