by Leigh Goessl

Created on: June 16, 2010

The U.S. Treasury Department has constructed a plan to go paperless by the year 2013. This new change, which was announced on June 14, 2010, will affect millions of people who are used to the paper checks sent each month through various government agencies.

Going green has been a trend for several years now in the private sector, and while the public sector has made some efforts to go electronic for a while now, it seems now these agencies are preparing to make a bigger commitment to going electronic.

According to sources, the decision to go paperless would eliminate 136 million checks going out. This means the government scales down its expenses on paper and postage; not to mention the reduction of resources, all of which aligns with the ultimate goal of gravitating to a green environment.

From a financial standpoint, Treasury officials indicate this new policy will result in a savings of $48 million in postage costs and taxpayers won't have to foot the bill for approximately $303 million dollars during the first five years.

The change will start with enrollees on or after March 1, 2011. At this point the paper option to receive benefit payments will end and enrollees will have to either choose direct deposit into a personal bank account or they will be enrolled in the federal government's debit card program; the latter has been used for a while now, even on local government levels for agencies such as child support and other social services benefits.

Instead of mailing out paper checks to recipients, the government plans to begin to migrate benefits payments to direct deposits to designated checking accounts provided by the recipients. The agencies who routinely pay out benefits affected by the new policy includes the Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Railroad Retirement Board and Office of Personnel Management.

It seems the only agency who is not going to need to follow the new mandate is the Internal Revenue Service, at least for a little bit longer. If the electronic trend continues, which it most likely will over the course of time, it is probably only a matter of time before the taxman also goes green.

In the meantime if you receive benefits from government agencies it is a good idea to start preparing to receive electronic payments. While many undoubtedly have resisted this change, one benefit is payments should likely arrive a lot sooner for recipients and be available for access.

One agency probably not happy about the change is the USPS, as it already has its own financial issues, seems like they'll be losing a big customer.

Sources:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/06/14/Feds-wants -benefit-checks-to-go-paperless/UPI-48571276552446/

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/06 /benefits_payments_going_paperl.html

http://www.bankrate.com/financing/taxes/paper-is-saf e-at-the-irs/

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