Follow-up: Collection of Civil Monetary Penalties
March 11, 2015
Office Affiliation: The Office of Audit
Audit Report Number: A-06-14-14047
The objective of this report was to assess the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) effectiveness in collecting civil monetary penalties (CMP).
CMPs are imposed against individuals, organizations, or other entities that violate sections 1129 or 1140 of the Social Security Act. A CMP may have two parts: an assessment of no more than twice the amount of benefits paid because of the violation and/or, with limited exceptions, a penalty of no more than $5,000 for each violation.
In our August 2011 report, Collection of Civil Monetary Penalties (A-06-11-11136), we determined that, while section 1140 CMP collection efforts were effective, section 1129 CMP collection efforts required improvement. Our report included three recommendations that SSA agreed to implement. For this review, we updated the collection status of section 1129 cases reviewed during our 2011 audit and determined the collection status of CMPs issued between January 2010 and December 2012.