Dec 3, 2005

Fancy OIG Report: Convictions and 1099s to Attorneys

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued its Fall 2005 Report to Congress, an elaborate full color document produced and, presumably, printed at what must have been considerable cost.
OIG is proud of achieving 2,159 convictions in fiscal year 2005, although no details are given on the nature of the charges.
One OIG recommendation mentioned in the report as not yet having been complied with may be of particular interest to attorneys who represent Social Security claimants:
Recommendation: We recommended that SSA collect each attorney’s SSN, name and address information so that IRS Form 1099 can be issued to attorneys.
Agency Response: SSA’s Executive Task Force is addressing the issue of providing IRS Form 1099 to attorneys and is developing a business process for issuing these forms.
Corrective Action: SSA must develop the automation support necessary to meet the Internal Revenue Code requirement that SSA issue Form-1099s to attorneys who receive attorney fees of $600 or more in a taxable year. The Attorney Fee Task Force has established a revised target of issuing Form-1099s toattorneys to January 2008 (representing attorney fees received during TY 2007). SSA has initiated planning and analysis required for development of the systems enhancements to collect and process the appropriate attorney data required for issuing the Form-1099s. Implementation of the attorney database is planned for the fall of 2006.

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