Addendum To The Supporting Statement for 0960-0462

Addendum to the Supporting Statement for Forms SSA-4588 & SSA-4589

You Can Make Your Payment By Credit Card

OMB No. 0960-0462

Terms of Clearance:

Per the bolded portion of the Terms of Clearance on the clearance package for 0960-0648 (SSA-1414):

TERMS OF CLEARANCE:

SSA has addressed the previous terms of clearance for this

collection. At this point in time, SSA is not required to

offer web-based payment for this credit card payment form

or to use a standard form for the purposes of this specific

collection. However, SSA should continue to explore ways to

consolidate credit card payment forms and provide

electronic payment for affected parties.

1. Can the SSA-4588 and SSA-4589 be submitted electronically?

Creating an Internet application would require SSA’s resources. It would be necessary to devote resources to the development of the Internet form and to the back-end systems processing that would capture the credit card data and ultimately have it posted to the person's overpayment record. Such an effort would require an Information Technology (IT) plan subject to approval by SSA's IT Advisory Board. Development of an internet-based process is not feasible at this time because the systems development resources are devoted currently to debt collection tools mandated by legislation.

In addition, another existing Federal program called Pay.gov has already created the platform for credit card payments over the Internet. SSA's plans are to engage in credit card payments over the Internet by using Treasury’s Financial Management Services (FMS) Pay.gov program. (Pay.gov is a secure Government-wide financial management transaction portal that uses the Internet, providing a suite of services that allow agencies to collect data, obtain and process collections, and present billing information in an efficient manner). In fact, SSA is testing the use of this system now for the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) payments (0960-0716; 0960-0665). To create our own Internet forms when Pay.gov already has them would be a duplication of effort at a time when the targeted use of resources in the Federal government is critical.

2. Can a generic version of these forms be developed?

We cannot use a generic version of these forms because they are individually processed by one of SSA’s six Program Service Centers (PSC). They are not processed in one central location. Each of the six versions of these forms contains PSC-specific information. Also, the Privacy Act notice is different on the SSA-4588 and SSA-4589.