Summary

GAO appeared before Subcommittees on Oversight and Human Resources, House Committee on Ways and Means to discuss the results of our investigation of the extent to which states have found that companies manipulate state unemployment tax rates through a variety of methods in order to lower their unemployment taxes, a practice known as "SUTA dumping," and of the extent to which some consulting firms promote SUTA dumping methods. We conducted our investigation from March 2003 through June 2003 in accordance with quality standards for investigations as set forth by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency. To obtain an overview of the extent of the problem, we conducted a survey of unemployment insurance administrators, in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Additionally, one of our agents, posing as a business owner who was looking for ways to reduce state unemployment insurance taxes, placed telephone calls to four consulting firms we identified through the Internet to determine whether they promote SUTA dumping techniques. We also interviewed officials of the Office of Workforce Security, Department of Labor to determine how the federal-state unemployment program operates.

Approximately three-fifths of the state unemployment insurance administrators informed us that their state laws are insufficient to combat SUTA dumping and that enforcement efforts to combat such practices are inadequate. Many of the remaining administrators reported that their laws and enforcement efforts are sufficient to address the problem. Other administrators told us that they do not have, or are not aware of, SUTA dumping problems in their states. Additionally, we found that three of the four consulting firms we contacted were willing to assist us in developing SUTA dumping methods for our fictitious business. The fourth firm suggested that SUTA dumping methods are illegal in most states and indicated that they were reluctant to engage in this type of business.