The payments for unknown items make government spending almost impossible to track, according to the agency.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said on Feb. 17 that a total of $4.7 trillion worth of payments from the Treasury Department are almost impossible to trace because of missing account identification codes.
DOGE said the Treasury Department has assigned identification codes called Treasury Access Symbols (TAS), designed to note which account a Treasury payment is linked to, which DOGE said was a “standard financial process” for bookkeeping. However, the codes were not assigned for trillions of dollars worth of payments as the field was considered optional, according to the agency.
“In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible,” DOGE stated on the social media platform X.
“As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going. Thanks to U.S. Treasury for the great work.”
According to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, TAS codes are identification codes assigned by the Treasury to “an individual appropriation, receipt, or other fund account.”
It stated that all financial transactions made by the federal government are typically classified using a TAS code for reporting to the Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget.
Savings Found
DOGE, headed by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, also proposed on Monday to eliminate paper checks at the Treasury to help save U.S. taxpayers’ money.
According to the advisory commission created by President Donald Trump, the Treasury processed 116 million paper checks in the fiscal year 2024 and stored them in a lockbox. The estimated cost of maintaining the lockbox is $2.40 per check, it stated.
DOGE also stated that some $25 billion in tax refunds were delayed or lost due to return of expired checks during the fiscal year 2023.
“Deleting paper checks would save at least $750 million per year,” the commission stated on social media platform X.
Trump replaced the existing United States Digital Service with DOGE and asked the commission to review federal agencies for potential downsizing and cost reductions. Trump would have to approve any proposals made by DOGE, which only has a fact-finding and advisory function.
