Treasury's 'Do Not Pay' Fraud Prevention Effort Saves $175 Million

The U.S. Department of Treasury said it has achieved significant savings from its program to prevent fraud and improper payments.

The effort fulfills a requirement of President Donald Trump’s executive order issued in March 2025 to protect America’s bank account against fraud, waste, and abuse, deploying streamlined fraud prevention tools and adding nine new data sources to the Do Not Pay program.

This was accomplished by establishing additional safeguards to verify information before federal payments are disbursed by screening more than 1.1 billion federal payments totaling approximately $3.7 trillion. Through these screenings, Treasury identified and returned approximately 13,500 payments totaling $175 million that would have instead gone to deceased individuals.

“Treasury continues to transform how the federal government protects taxpayer dollars by using better data, stronger controls, and advanced technology to stop fraud and improper payments before money goes out the door,” Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement on Tuesday, October 6.

He continued:

In the past year alone, Treasury built and deployed new safeguards that verified more than $3.7 trillion in federal payments and increased Do Not Pay access from 4 percent of programs to 99 percent, ensuring agencies have access to the data they need. We are moving beyond ‘pay and chase’ and making prevention the federal government’s first line of defense.

Trump’s Treasury Department expanded the reach and capabilities of the Do Not Pay program, which provides federal agencies and state-administered departments with data and tools to help verify identity of recipients and their eligibility for programs for the purpose of preventing fraud and improper payments. Now, approximately 99 percent of federal programs can use the data sources, compared to just 4 percent one year ago.

The new additions to Do Not Pay increased the data screened to approximately 20 times the previous amount, and most remaining programs are on track to complete onboarding in the 2027 fiscal year. Access to and use of Do Not Pay data is governed by strict privacy, security, and user access controls, Treasury officials said.

“President Trump continues to deliver for Americans where previous administrations have fallen short. This Administration is setting new standards in record time to prevent fraud and improper payments before hard-earned taxpayer dollars leave the Treasury,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Fox News regarding the savings to taxpayers.

Additionally, a philosophical change in operation from what Treasury called “pay and chase” to prevention and verification has also made a positive impact. Among the changes the department instituted were expanding the breadth and depth of information available to agencies, using new sources including company registration information through OpenCorporates and verification against Social Security data.

Treasury piloted additional verification capabilities during the 2026 fiscal year to validate bank account ownership and Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TINs) associated with federal payments. These capabilities were completed at the end of September, enabling Treasury to identify and return payments that failed to meet established verification requirements before funds are disbursed.

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