The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) revealed Monday that approximately $4.7 trillion in federal payments were missing a critical tracking code, making it nearly impossible to trace the transactions.
BREAKING D.O.G.E just exposed the Treasury Dep. for not tracing $4,700,000,000,000.00…
YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT $4.7 TRILLION
WE NEED TO SEE PEOPLE IN PRISON
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) February 17, 2025
Dennis Quaid’s #1 Warning for Americans
According to DOGE, these payments lacked the Treasury Account Symbol (TAS), a unique identifier that links federal payments to specific budget items.
The department described the use of TAS as a “standard financial process,” emphasizing its importance in ensuring transparency and accountability.
“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 in a post on X.
In response to the discovery, DOGE announced that the use of the TAS code is now mandatory for all Treasury payments.
“As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going,” the department stated, thanking the Treasury Department for its cooperation in implementing the change.
The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process).
In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost…
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) February 17, 2025
Elon Musk, who has been leading the federal efficiency initiative, called the new requirement a “major improvement in Treasury payment integrity.”
“This was a combined effort of DOGE, Treasury and the Federal Reserve,” Musk posted on X. “Nice work by all.”
Major improvement in Treasury payment integrity going live!
This was a combined effort of @DOGE, @USTreasury and @FederalReserve. Nice work by all. https://t.co/dpLmXRpufT
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025
Following President Trump’s inauguration, DOGE embedded itself within the Treasury Department to monitor and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.
The department, which oversees trillions in federal payments annually, granted DOGE officials access to its high-level financial systems to conduct oversight.
“This is not some roving band … This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during an interview with Bloomberg TV last week.
In addition to tracking government payments, DOGE has proposed eliminating paper checks within the Treasury Department, estimating that doing so could save taxpayers at least $750 million per year.
The initiative noted that Treasury maintains a “physical lockbox” to collect and process more than 100 million checks annually, costing about $2.40 per check to manage.
In fiscal year 2023, DOGE reported that $25 billion in tax refunds were either delayed or lost due to returned or expired checks.
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