More than 27,000 healthcare providers (about 6 percent of all such providers) who were paid under Medicare during CY06 had payroll and other agreed-to federal tax debts totaling more than $2 billion, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis of data provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and IRS. The $2 billion in unpaid tax debts includes only those debts reported on a tax return or assessed by IRS through its enforcement programs. According to the GAO, this $2 billion figure is understated because some providers owed taxes under tax identification numbers (TINs) separate from the TINs that received the Medicare payments, or they did not file their tax returns.
GAO examined about 436,000 Medicare providers who received payments in 2006. Among other investigative activities, the agency compared claim payment data from CMS and tax debt data from the IRS. It found that $896 million, or about half, of the back taxes were from payroll taxes the providers withheld from employees but did not turn over to the Treasury Department. In some cases, the funds were diverted into personal accounts, according to the report. Read the highlights.
