VA Dept. To Suspend Collection Activities For Gov’t Employees

The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced that individuals who are working for the federal government and have been furloughed may be eligible for a temporary suspension of collection activity if they have debts owed to the department.

Specifically, individuals who have a debt because benefits were overpaid to them, such as through the GI Bill or compensation, can request a 90-day suspension of collection activity on their accounts, according to a published report.

Individuals who have medial debts owed to Veterans Affairs can also request a suspension of collection activity, but those balances tend to be smaller and collection activity doesn’t usually start until the debt is at least 180 days old, according to the report.

More than 800,000 employees of the federal government have been furloughed during the shutdown, which is in its fourth week. Many of them, including 36,000 employees of the Internal Revenue Service who were ordered back to work yesterday, are working without pay during the shutdown.

A showdown is looming between the unions representing federal government employees and the executive branch, which is slowly ordering more employees back to work. Union leaders are upset that individuals are working for no pay.

There have been a number of reports and ideas floated to help government employees manage their finances during the shutdown, some of them less helpful than others.