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Farm Programs: Finality Rule Should Be Eliminated

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Report Type Reports and Testimonies
Report Date March 7, 1997
Report No. RCED-97-46
Subject
Summary:

The Farm Service Agency pays billions of dollars each year to farmers as part of such programs as disaster assistance and agricultural conservation. Occasionally, because of errors, the Agency pays farmers too much. In 1990, Congress enacted the "finality rule," which states that a farmer need not repay an overpayment unless it is discovered within 90 days of the date of the payment or the application for program benefit, fraud is involved, or the farmer was aware that an error had occurred. The rule was intended to protect farmers from the hardship of repaying large sums of money long after payments were made. This report reviews (1) the number and dollar amount of overpayments not repaid by farmer under the rule since 1990 and the characteristics of individual overpayments and (2) steps that the Agency has taken to reduce the number of finality-rule cases and associated dollar amounts.

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