Federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income; Collection of Overdue Program and Administrative Debts Using Federal Salary Offset

The proposed rules published in the Federal Register on March 13, 2006 at 71 FR 12648, are adopted as final with no changes. These regulations modify our regulations dealing with the recovery of benefit overpayments under titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act (the Act), as well as recovery of administrative debts owed to us. Specifically, we are modifying our regulations to implement statutory authority for the use of Federal Salary Offset (FSO). FSO is a process whereby the salary-paying agency withholds and pays to us up to 15 percent of the debtor's disposable pay until the debt has been repaid. In the case of title II program overpayment debts, we would apply FSO to collect only overpayments made to a person after he or she attained age 18, and we would pursue FSO after that person ceases to be a beneficiary and we determine that the overpayment is otherwise unrecoverable under section 204 of the Act. In the case of title XVI program overpayment debts, these same restrictions apply, but we must determine the overpayment to be otherwise unrecoverable under section 1631(b) of the Act, rather than section 204 of the Act. FSO is only applicable if the debtor is a Federal employee.