Stopping Fraudulent Payments Act

If you normally get a steady amount, that part should still go out on time. Only the piece that looks unusually large or risky would be held, where the agency finds it practical.

Once you challenge a hold and the agency decides your payment is fine, it has 7 days to send the money. The outside limit is 30 days from the day the hold was ordered.

An agency would have to hold, split, or add conditions to a payment when its data flags a fraud or error risk. If it then finds nothing wrong, it has 30 days at most to pay you.

The notice must say which fraud signal triggered the hold and how the review works. Your state must be told too when it runs the federally funded program that pays you.

Each agency would build a way for you to correct wrong facts or send in more information. A hold by itself is not a ruling that you did anything wrong.

An agency can set aside any part of these rules, case by case, if federal law enforcement or an inspector general says it would harm an active fraud case. That can include your notice and the deadlines.

Starting 18 months in, Treasury must tell Congress how many payments were held and what share went out anyway, including after people challenged them. It must also report money saved and fixes for wrong fraud signals.

Treasury would post rules in the Federal Register within 180 days and update them yearly. The rules must set how senior an official must be to hold a payment, and what your notice has to say.

Today a federal officer can be on the hook personally for a payment that turns out to be wrong. Acting in good faith under these new rules would protect them from that.