HR 1163 United States House · 118th Congress

Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act

The Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act allows states to retain 25% of funds recovered from fraudulent unemployment claims (for pandemic-related benefits) to improve fraud prevention systems. States can use these retained funds to modernize unemployment systems, hire fraud investigators, reimburse administrative costs, or conduct other fraud prevention activities. The bill requires states to use specific data matching systems like the National Directory of New Hires to detect fraud more effectively. It modifies federal rules to ensure states can use recovered funds without violating deposit requirements. This legislation aims to reduce unemployment fraud while protecting taxpayers and victims of fraud.

Bill status passed 3 of 5 stages cleared

Introduction

Feb 2023

Committee Review

May 2023

House Passage

May 2023

Senate Passage

President

Introduced Feb 24, 2023 Last action May 11, 2023

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Introduced in House → Engrossed in House · 3 edits · May 11, 2023

MINOR

The Engrossed version makes three substantive changes to the Introduced version: it adds a new Section 8 creating a state fund contingency mechanism that ensures states are not financially penalized for retaining recovered fraud funds, narrows the emergency staffing flexibility provision in Section 5 to specifically reference federal pandemic unemployment programs under the CARES Act, and adds the word 'proper' before 'classification of employees' in one permissible use. The remaining changes are formatting and punctuation corrections.

Scope change

The bill's overall scope is largely unchanged, but Section 5's emergency staffing flexibility is narrowed to specifically apply to federal pandemic unemployment programs under the CARES Act rather than being broadly applicable to all fraudulent overpayments. The new Section 8 adds a funding safety net that was not present in the introduced version.

FISCAL

New Section 8 (State fund contingency) requires that unobligated balances from CARES Act section 2118 be transferred to Treasury and credited on an as-needed basis to State accounts in the Unemployment Trust Fund, replacing any amount a State deposits into its own state fund under the new retention provisions. This protects states from losing federal trust fund balance because they retained recovered fraud money.

SCOPE

Section 5 (emergency staffing flexibility) now explicitly limits the scope to 'detection, pursuit, and recovery of fraudulent overpayments under Federal pandemic unemployment compensation programs authorized under the CARES Act' rather than being a general reference to fraudulent overpayments. This narrows when states can use temporary merit-based personnel modifications.

REQUIREMENT

Section 3(a)(2)(H)(ii) adds the word 'proper' before 'classification of employees,' changing the permissible use from 'purposes relating to the classification of employees' to 'purposes relating to the proper classification of employees.' This is a minor tightening of language.

Floor votes · House May 11, 2023

How they voted

230–200

Passed · 5 other

Total votes 435

May 11, 2023

D Democratic213

10 Yea 200 Nay 3

93% Nay

I Independent1

1 Yea

100% Yea

R Republican221

219 Yea 2

99% Yea

Vote distribution

All Yea All Nay Mixed No data

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Amendments

May 11, 2023

Lower · Passed

On passage Passed by recorded vote: 230 - 200 (Roll no. 211). (text: CR H2281-2283)

lower

May 11, 2023

Lower · Passed

Passed/agreed to in House: On passage Passed by recorded vote: 230 - 200 (Roll no. 211). (text: CR H2281-2283)

lower

May 11, 2023

Lower · Passed

Mrs. Sykes moved to recommit to the Committee on Ways and Means. (text: CR H2292)

lower

May 10, 2023

Lower · Passed

Rule H. Res. 383 passed House.

lower

May 10, 2023

Lower · Passed

Rules Committee Resolution H. Res. 383 Reported to House. Rule provides for consideration of H.R. 2 and H.R. 1163. The resolution provides for consideration of H.R. 2 under a closed rule with five hours of general debate, and the resolution provides for consideration of H.R. 1163 under a closed rule with one hour of general debate. The resolution provides for a motion to recommit on each measure.

lower

Apr 6, 2023

Lower · Passed

Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Ways and Means. H. Rept. 118-34.

lower

Feb 28, 2023

Introduced

Ordered to be Reported in the Nature of a Substitute (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 20 - 17.

lower

Feb 28, 2023

Lower · Passed

Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held.

lower

Feb 24, 2023

Committee

Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.

lower

Feb 24, 2023

Introduced

Introduced in House

lower

1 primary · 35 co-sponsors