**GAO-03-356**                      Published: Mar 06, 2003. Publicly Released: Mar 06, 2003.                  

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## Highlights

According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), taxpayers currently owe about $249 billion in delinquent taxes. At the same time, the government pays billions of dollars in Social Security, retirement, and other federal payments to thousands of these individuals. To help IRS administer tax laws fairly and collect delinquent taxes effectively, Congress included a provision authorizing the Federal Payment Levy Program, which allows IRS to continuously levy up to 15 percent of certain federal payments made to delinquent taxpayers. Because of congressional interest about whether the Federal Payment Levy Program is being implemented as intended, GAO was asked to assess how well the program is operating.

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## Topics

Tax Policy and Administration

Debt collectionDelinquent taxesFederal taxesProgram evaluationProgram managementTax administrationTaxpayersSocial security beneficiariesFederal paymentsBenefit payments