to have mr von let's begin directly with the question of jurisdiction the border veterans appeals in this decision made a clear unambiguous conclusion of law that a valid debt had been created doing necessarily relied upon the same interpretation of fifty three thirteen that the statute authorizes the creation of a debt if as mr bowen contends that section fifty three thirteen does not authorize the creation of a debt by the v a then that interpretation controls the outcome which means that this court has jurisdiction so you could kill this argument it seems to me mr carpenter that you do have a wa very problem here and i'm not sure you're going to have to convince me that you made this argument below this no this argument was not made below the argument made below or relied strictly on a question of due process and the question of due process was based upon the assumption the incorrect assumption that fifty one thirteen was creating a lawful that and that the right to a hearing on the question of waiver was relevant to the  process consideration for the implementation of the creation of that in other words that the hearing was part and parcel of the creative process of creating that that so in that argument that because you're not this court's jurisdiction is implicated based upon an interpretation of a statute that was relied upon by the veterans and in order to get to the veterans court  did raise or below i'm having a hard time understanding how you can address that now and i do you like piggybacking this argument onto something that you did already what was argued below due process argument that was predicated upon the validity of the death ok set that aside you did not argue that fifty three their king allows a v a to create a ballot that no you are but that was the decision of the board that was appealed by the veteran and that was the decision that was affirmed by the veteran school this court's jurisdiction is derived upon  any interpretation of any statute that was relied upon by the veterans court in making its decision the decision of the veterans court was that mr vaughan had failed to carry his burden to demonstrate an error by the veterans other arguments that were raised below and you have jurisdiction before this court and we can listen to that but it seems to me that that by your statement you agree that you waived this particular argument  honor i agree that it was not raised i do not agree that it was way i do not believe that under this court's jurisdiction a statute that it can be waived when the jurisdiction of this court is predicated upon whether or not the lower court did or did not rely upon interpretations that are not run or i think very well be wrong i accept that as a reality but i believe that that is a correct statement of the law and is consistent with this court's jur prudence relative the exercise of this court's jurisdiction when the interpretation of a statute goes to the ultimate outcome and disposition of the appeal  of the provisions of fifty three thirteen for a singular and limited purpose in which congress directed and authorized the v a to limit the amount of compensation that is received by a person who was incarcerated for a felony congress did not in any way shape or for authorize the v a to do anything other than the limit the amount of the full compensation to which is to ten percent so so it is a functional reduction from whatever it was in this case it was a total rating but if it had been a thirty forty or fifty percent rating the veteran under this statute is entitle to retain ten percent all right if you say it's there i'll find it ok i'm sorry it is what it within one of the subsections europe and i don't believe that that fact is disputed by the government in this case the v had the sole responsibility to determine whether or not there was an incarcerated victim of course rated veteran who had served sixty one days and after that sixty one days the direction of fifty one only if that change of address affected the payment of his benefits so if it seemed any less he was supposed to notify them if his address changed and he just sent to prison for felony murder his addresses change explicitly directly requires an incarcerated veteran to do that now the v a with the refer that they do that so that they will know that the veteran is incarcerated but congress did not put any burden on any incarcerated better and to give direct notice to the v a of their incarceration clearly if that was a provision within the statute there'd be no argument here because there would be no basis for  mister vaughan to evade the fact that he was responsible for notifying them and as a result of the failure to notify the overpayment result but the way in which the statute is actually written if we stay within the four corners of the statute the statute only imposes a burden on the secretary and that burden is to limit or reduce the amount of compensation received during the period of incarceration but what about the a form twenty one dash eighty seven sixty four that form your honor simply makes passing reference to the things that the v a describes as conditions affecting the right to benefits and the right to benefits is definitely affected by being incarcerated it does not say at the bottom in i don't have that in front of me but i think it says please quote please notify this office immediately in writing or your signature of any change of address in the quote says quote benefits will be reduced upon incarceration into quote separate sections the section that i was referring to is the explanation of the benefit reduction and that is under a capitalized and are conditions affecting rights to benefit under that condition or to be above that at or is the direction the change of address notice and it says please notify the office immediately in writing over your signature of any change in address which is what he did he changed his address to his sister and brother now the v a is willing to do that was not his address the address is where he wants his benefits set sent to it is not a no requirement in any statute or any regulation that requires the veterans benefits to be sent directly to the veterans residence or where the veteran is residing for years i was guardian for a number of veterans and their benefits were sent to my office and that is a permissible direction by the that are and for where they want their benefits sent sometimes they have them sent to other relatives sometimes they have them since a spouse or other family a return to the board with instructions that under the correct interpretation of fifty three thirteen the the a exceeded its authority by creating this that there was no lawful bases within the rosenberg thank your honor may please the court the sole issue raised on appeal concerns the validity of mr vaughan's debt under section fifty three thirteen and mr carpenter has acknowledged that that issue was not disputed below and consequently the veterans court found that the matter was not disputed and had no opportunity or reason to interpret the statute before moving on to later issues concerning the amount of the debt the collection of the debt and the denial of a waiver and because the issue was not disputed and because the veteran's court did not interpret the statute and rendering its decision on those other issues there has been no interpretation of section fifty three thirteen which this court would have jurisdiction to review the issues presented below concerning again the amount of the debt that the a's actions and collecting the debt any fault on the part of the parties and the denial of the waiver are fact bound questions which this court has held in prior decisions it does not have jurisdiction to review so it appears that a lot of the focus concerning fault and relative fault of the parties and the validity of the creation of the debt are an indirect or overly could attempt to litigate issues that are fact around which this court does not have jurisdiction to review this and we should dismiss rather than  correct your honor the court does not have jurisdiction to review the any interpretation of section fifty three thirteen because there was no such interpretation by the veterans court below but if the court did go beyond this jurisdictional argument or overlooks the waiver of the conceded apparently the can and apparently conceded waiver of the issue the court should affirm the decision below because the veterans court correctly conclude  board correctly concluded and the veterans court affirmed that mr vons debt took effect on the sixty first day of his incarceration by operation of the plain language of the statute itself the premise of mr vons brief is that the statute imposes a duty on the v a alone to reduce the payments on the sixty first day of incarceration if the court looks carefully at the language of fifty three thirteen a one is not couched in terms of  a limitation on what the secretary should do or mandate to the secretary to do anything instead it is worded as a prohibition on the payment it says that the person who receives the benefits shall not be paid it doesn't say the vector the secretary shall not it says that that person shall not be paid and the focus on the work payment is what animated the court's analysis and snyder distinguishing between payments and awards of compensation so under the plain language of section fifty three thirteen a one it contains the date on which the reduction of payments takes effect and the date on which the debt becomes effective so when mr von wants this court directs the court to apply section fifty one twelve which is a statute of general application in spite of the specific command fifty three thirteen a warm there is no way to square the application of the fifty fifty one twelfth to the clear command fifty three thirteen a one hundred fifty three thirteen authorized  fifty three thirteen does not contain an express authorization to create a debt what it does create is the facts necessary to determine when an overpayment is made and all that is needed to turn an overpayment into a debt is a determine by the agency that there's been an overpayment and the money is owed issues concerning fault of the veteran fault of the v a all of those issues concerning fault can be resolved in the v a has information sharing agreements with both the federal bureau of prisons and the social security administration if you're in federal prison the federal bureau of prisons will forward your identifying information to the v a they will cross reference it and  the v a should be able to identify if you are in jail on receiving benefits the social security administration serves that function for state court so then this sort of the bureau of prisons that's part of the the indicate that of that the defendant is a veteran my understanding is that person identifying information such as a social security number which would be i would i presume part of the information conveyed to the federal  is crawford cross reference against a list of social security numbers or other identifying information for veterans receiving benefits and then if there is a reason to suspect that there is a veteran in jail who is receiving benefits in spite of the commands of fifty three thirteen then communication will be made by the v a to the prison to confirm that the person is incarcerated and then the benefits would be reduced at that point in one thousand the early one nine hundred ninety s we understand that there was no information sharing agreement that would have captured vaughan's incarceration because he was in state prison and there was no information sharing agreement in place at that time but to the extent that there's any concern about inequity or injustice if the v a commits an error in collecting a debt that in spite of its own air under fifty three thirteen any such an equity can be handled in resolved by application of the statute and the regulations providing for the waiver of indebtedness and the regulation provides that if it is against equity and good conscience to much your honor the government says that all that is needed to create it that is what the government describes absent from that is any citation to this court in their breach or in their arm as to where the statute is or the regulation that authorizes them to created that there is no such statute most importantly there is no such statute  debt that has to be paid back except that your honor it's a fact it was not how debt is created debt is created when there is a process to identify how the debt was created and that is what is missing within the confines of the statute there is nothing in fifty three thirteen that makes reference to it that makes reference to overpayment and says how that will happen this only happened because the v a did not know that mr von was incarcerated yet when mr von made application for his dependents to have those dependents paid while he was incarcerated his benefit less the ten percent the v a process that application and all of his benefits less the ten percent were paid to his dependents there was only the five year period in which the government failed to act how is their failure to act and if so facto creation of a debt there must be some affirmative action on the part of the veteran to create eight a debt if we if we disagree with your your here statement that you dissipate what does that do to the rescue argument jurisdiction is derived when the lower court relies necessarily upon an interpretation and if that interpretation were different the outcome below would be different that