YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyCivil LibertiesCriminal Justice & Due ProcessTransparency & AccountabilityA bigger Treasury fraud database would screen everyone who gets federal money, and agencies would verify your bank account before paying.
Your Money
An agency cannot deny or stop a payment based only on a database match. It must take separate steps to confirm eligibility before acting.
Before any federal payment goes out, the agency must confirm the amount, the payee name, a valid ID number, that the payee is alive, and that the bank account is open and belongs to that person. The payment is not released until those checks are met.
Civil Liberties
Agencies may not hold onto match results for more than 30 days. The result must be used for the payment or award decision at hand and then dropped.
A search may return only a match or no-match, a confidence level, the data sources, and basic details. Staff may not browse records or run repeated searches to rebuild someone's file.
Every person or business that gets or applies for a federal payment or award must be run against the "Do Not Pay" data before the money moves. Today agencies review a narrower set of databases.
State and local governments that run federally funded programs would have access to the system, and so would their contractors, subcontractors, and auditors. The courts and Congress would also get access to verify payments.
Normally, comparing two federal record systems triggers Privacy Act "matching program" rules. Those rules would not apply when Treasury's check returns only a yes-or-no answer, keeps results 30 days or less, and asks about 20 records or fewer at a time.
Information from the system can be used to prevent improper payments, and also for federal or state law enforcement and investigations. That second use is broader than fraud in federal payments.
The Treasury Secretary could name new categories of data to pull into the system, including personal information and law enforcement records. Public notice and comment come first for sensitive data.
Existing computer matching agreements between agencies could run up to 5 years instead of 3, and renewals could also run 5 years. Longer terms mean less frequent review of the data sharing.
Criminal Justice & Due Process
Anyone who knowingly and willfully shares "Do Not Pay" information outside the allowed uses faces up to 5 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both. This is a new federal crime.
The one-time spending report from a first-time award recipient must be built to spot fraud signals. Those signals would be sent on for investigation, including possible False Claims Act cases.
Transparency & Accountability
Treasury must publish and keep updated a public notice naming each data source in the system, how it may be used, and who may reach it. No data source may be shared before that notice is out.
Before adding a new category of sensitive personal data, Treasury must take public comment for at least 15 days. Adding a specific data source inside a category takes at least 30 days of comment.
Treasury must keep a public website listing every active data-sharing agreement that uses the standard form, with the agency, the data covered, the purpose, and the date. A combined list is published every 3 months, and it replaces the separate notices each agency publishes today.
Treasury must send Congress a report every 3 months on how the system performs and how often its data is wrong. An agency evaluation officer must also send a yearly estimate of fraud caught and dollars saved, broken out by data source.
Any group getting money from a federal program for the first time — a nonprofit, a city, a state, a company — must file one report on how it used the money, due 180 days after the award. The report goes to the agency, not to the public.
If the report is not filed, the agency must send a written notice and hold back further payments for that program until it arrives. The notice must explain how to fix the problem.
Data-sharing agreements made under the new fast-track form must end in under 5 years. An agency may renew for up to 5 more years only by attesting in writing that the deal has not changed.
Agencies that adopt Treasury's standard data-matching form would not need review by their Data Integrity Board, the in-house panel that now signs off on such deals.
An agency may ask Treasury to be excused from some or all of the payment checks for certain payments. It must submit a plan and a timeline to fix whatever made the waiver necessary.
More about this bill
Federal agencies would have to check your name, ID number, and bank account before sending you money. This covers most federal payments, such as benefits, refunds, and grants. An agency could not release a payment until those checks pass. If a check fails, the payment waits. But one database hit alone could not stop your benefits. The agency would have to look further first. Leaking this payment data on purpose would become a crime. The penalty would be up to 5 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both. The Treasury Department's "Do Not Pay" program would grow into a larger system. Everyone who seeks federal money would be checked against it. Treasury could add new data sources, including personal records, after a public comment period of at least 15 days. State and local governments would gain access, along with their contractors and auditors. Some Privacy Act rules would no longer apply to simple yes-or-no checks. Match results could be kept only 30 days, and reading through the records would be banned. The data could also be used for federal and state law enforcement. Groups getting a first-time federal award of $50,000 or more would file a report. It would cover how they spent the money. Agencies would stop further payments to those who do not file. Treasury would publish a list of its data sources and of every active data-sharing deal. It would report to Congress every 3 months. The changes would start 180 days after the bill becomes law.
Congressional Summary
Pre-Payment Fraud Prevention and Treasury Data Access ActThis bill expands efforts to identify, prevent, and recover improper payments of federal funds (e.g., overpayments, underpayments, payments to ineligible recipients).Specifically, the Department of the Treasury must establish certain requirements that agencies must meet before directing Treasury to make a payment of federal funds. These pre-payment requirements must include verification of payee information, payment details, and fund availability. Further, agencies must, to the extent practicable, verify the accuracy of payee bank account information before directing Treasury to make a payment.The bill also expands the Do Not Pay system, which provides agencies with access to centralized data for the purpose of verifying payee eligibility, and provides statutory authority for Treasury’s role as administrator of the system. The bill requires specified data assets to be added to the system and authorizes Treasury to (1) designate additional data assets for inclusion, and (2) access certain taxpayer and Social Security information for the system. The bill specifies that information obtained through the system may only be used to prevent and recover improper payments and establishes penalties for the unlawful disclosure of such information.The bill explicitly requires executive agencies and state and local governments administering federally funded programs to screen payees against all appropriate Do Not Pay data assets and risk tools before making an award or directing a payment.Finally, the bill establishes post-award reporting requirements for certain first-time fund recipients under federal programs for awards of $50,000 or more.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in House
- Action Date
- 2026-04-23
- Date Added
- 2026-06-05
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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