\nJulie Walker, Associated Press \u00b7 February 19, 2015 at 4:17 pm
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\n\tLAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. (AP) \u2013 Forty-six New Jersey lottery winners from July 2013 to July 2014 used Social Security numbers of dead people to collect their winnings, the state auditor said.<\/p>\n
\tAn audit released Wednesday said the use of dead people\u2019s identification numbers creates a risk of reduced tax revenue for the state, overpayment of public assistance and lost collections on child support, defaulted student loans and other debt.<\/p>\n
\tAuditor Stephen Eells said that up to $890,000 in prize winnings could have been recovered if winners below $250,000 were checked for debts against the Treasury Department\u2019s Set-Off of Individual Liability system. The lottery now only checks winners of more than $250,000 in the SOIL system, but the audit recommends checks for all winners over $600.<\/p>\n
\tExecutive Director Carole Hedinger said during the Lottery Commission\u2019s monthly meeting Thursday that they are aware people try to cheat the system and are working to tighten their regulations.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhat we are working on is trying to find or get authorization to go even further to verify the legitimacy of social security numbers, something we are currently not authorized to do,\u201d Hedinger said, referring to federal law that she says prevents the lottery from performing automated Social Security matches for all state departments.<\/p>\n
\tAccording to the commission, 26 winners were flagged as owing money after their Social Security numbers came up in various state agency databases in January. Twenty-three of them had their winnings garnished for things like public assistance, food stamps and student loans.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThat\u2019s a problem with all industries with people using illegal Social Security (numbers). In fact, we are ahead of the curve,\u201d said Lottery Commission Chairman Thomas Tucci. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working to try to get that corrected, it\u2019s just a matter of getting the regulators to give us the authority to go further.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHedinger said in her written response to the audit that the lottery has to balance providing good service and timely payments with its legal responsibilities. She said that the lottery collected nearly $300,000 from winners that owed the state.<\/p>\n
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Julie Walker, Associated Press \u00b7 February 19, 2015 at 4:17 pm Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on pinterest_shareMore Sharing Services 0 LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. (AP) \u2013 Forty-six New Jersey lottery winners from July 2013 to July 2014 used Social…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}