Payment of Fraudulent Claims for Travel Expenses

Several questions were asked pertaining to a ruling in the decisions of the Comptroller General concerning Government payments to individuals who submit travel vouchers containing some fraudulently claimed or inflated expenses. While the ruling deals primarily with civilian personnel, it applies equally to military members and non-Government employees traveling under invitational travel orders. The term "subsistence expenses" refers to both those expenses associated with per diem and those associated with actual subsistence expense allowance payments. Generally, each separate item of pay and allowance is to be viewed as a separate claim and only those separate claims which are fraudulent are to be denied. Because a voucher may be separated according to individual days where each day comprises a separate item of per diem or actual subsistence expense allowance, a fraudulent statement for any subsistence item taints the entire subsistence claim for the day. Therefore, each day of per diem or each day of actual subsistence allowance is a separate item for the purpose of evaluating which parts of a voucher containing or supported by fraudulent statements may be paid. Although various individual expenses are included within an item, where one individual expense is fraudulent, the entire item is disallowed.