May 2007

Doctors’ back taxes could come out of Medicare pay

Two influential senators have proposed a law that would hold back some of a physician’s Medicare payments if the doctor owes back taxes to the government.

The proposed legislation comes after the Government Accountability Office testified at a March hearing that more than 21,000 physicians and related providers owed $1.3 billion in federal taxes. If just a portion of Medicare Part B payments had gone through a federal program to recoup tax debts, the government would have collected between $50 million and $140 million in unpaid taxes in just the first nine months of 2005.

The bill, introduced by senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and Norm Coleman (R-MN), would levy payments to “delinquent taxpayers” at 15 percent or more per year until they paid off their debts. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) would start out by screening 50 percent of Part B payments within one year, and all payments the following year.

Most physicians are honest, but “others have been stuffing taxpayer dollars in their pockets at the same time they have been stiffing Uncle Sam by not paying their taxes,” said Sen. Levin. Medicare physicians also owe $33 million in child support and $27 million in student loans, so the bill would dock the physicians for those debts too.

Industry News from:
Chiropractic News from: