$175 Million Almost Went to Dead People. Treasury's New Payment Screen Is Working. Now Scale It
Treasury caught about 13,500 payments to the deceased in fiscal 2026 and opened its Do Not Pay data to about 99% of federal programs. In our view, it is real progress, with $186 billion in improper payments still to fight.
By Clara Hughes
ALTAS WORLD NEWS OPINION | By Clara Hughes, Chief Opinion Editor | October 7, 2026 | 5-min read Here is a sentence no taxpayer should ever have to read: the federal government almost sent $175 million to dead people in the fiscal year that just ended. On Tuesday, the Treasury Department reported that its new payment checks caught about 13,500 such payments in fiscal 2026 and returned them [1]. When Treasury last reported in July, the count stood at more than 4,900 payments worth about $99 million [2][5]. In our view, this is what fixing government looks like. It is not glamorous. It is checking names against records before the money leaves the building. Now Washington needs to scale it up, because the bigger problem is much larger. Key Takeaways In fiscal 2026, Treasury screened more than 1.1 billion federal payments worth about $3.7 trillion and returned about 13,500 payments, totaling $175 million, that would have gone to deceased individuals [1]. About 99% of federal programs can now access all the Do Not Pay data sources they are legally authorized to use, up from about 4% at the end of fiscal 2025 [1]. The government's watchdog, GAO, estimates improper payments