To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports H.R. 1163, the “Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act,” and we urge to you vote “yes” in support of the bill. This legislation would provide states an incentive to recover fraudulent unemployment compensation payments by allowing states to keep 25 percent of the federal pandemic UI funds and, upon meeting certain program integrity and fraud prevention requirements, 5 percent of the state UI funds that are recovered. Additionally, this bill would permit states to use the recovery rewards to improve fraud prevention and UI program integrity. Finally, this legislation would also extend the statute of limitation for prosecuting pandemic fraud, giving states more time to recuperate fraudulently paid funds.
Currently, states have limited resources and incentives to address the estimated $60 billion to $400 billion that was lost to UI fraud during the pandemic. This legislation directly responds by returning the recuperated federal UI dollars to the government and the state UI dollars to states’ UI trust funds. Returning the stolen state UI funds will help replenish state trust funds, thereby minimizing the impact to businesses’ payroll taxes. Furthermore, the recovery rewards will bolster states’ UI modernization efforts to improve system capabilities which will mitigate future instances of fraud at this scale in the future.
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