Treasury Buries Payments to the Deceased
Sending money to the recently deceased should be the easiest way to stop wasting the taxpayer’s money. The Department of the Treasury announced on July 21, 2026, that the agency had prevented $99 million in taxpayer funds from going to deceased individuals. This taxpayer victory became possible thanks to implementation of a new government-wide payment verification system, which builds on Treasury’s expanded access to the full Social Security Administration (SSA) Death Master File (DMF). Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) first flagged the issue with improper federal payments to the deceased in June 2009, four years before the first Government Accountability Office (GAO) first reported on the issue.
The DMF contains information on beneficiaries whose deaths were verified. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 granted Treasury temporary access to the DMF for three years, resulting in a noticeable improvement in identifying deceased recipients of government payments and an estimated $330 million in savings.
On March 25, 2025, President Trump reinvigorated the effort to combat federal improper payments by signing Executive Order (EO) 14249, “Protecting America’s Bank Account against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse.” In the EO, President Trump instructed the Treasury secretary to “update guidance and enhance systems to ensure that all payments […] are subject to pre-certification verification processes […].”
On February 10, 2026, President Trump signed S. 269, the Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act, as Public Law No. 119-77, as part of the administration’s anti-fraud campaign. This made Treasury’s access to the DMF permanent. Between March 2025 and July 2026, Treasury has identified more than 4,900 improper payments associated with deceased payees after screening more than 885 million payments.
The GAO first recommended that the Treasury be granted permanent access to DMF in May 2013 and reiterated the recommendation in November 2016. CAGW supported this change and pushed for an even wider expansion of federal access to the DMF. Federal agencies that cut checks for payments must know who is deceased, which is the best evidence that an individual is no longer eligible for any benefits. Continued success requires vigilance and the sharing of information to prevent these improper payments.
