Overpayment and Undue Payment Operations in Publıc Sector Accountıng and their Accounting Process

Abstract

Those charged and authorized with the acquisition and usage of all types of public resources are responsible for obtaining, using, accounting for, reporting resources in an effective, economical, efficient and legal way, and taking the necessary precautions to prevent their misusage. They have to report to the offices that are authorized regarding these issues. In this context, overpayment and undue payments made by public administrations become significant in terms of using public resources in an effective, economical, efficient, and legal way. One of the confusing issues for public institutions regarding salaries and similar payments to civil servants is on which legislation provisions should collection of salaries, additional course, severance, additional payment and similar payments should be collected in terms of overpayment and undue payments made for civil servants. In practice, most institutions interpret overpayments and undue payments to civil servants as public loss, and they carry out collection operations within the framework of the provisions of the Directive on Collection of Public Loss.

Overpayment and undue payment refer to all forms of payments that are determined to be excessively or improperly made by an institution to employers, insurance holders, voluntary insurance holders, those who receive income or monthly payment, beneficiaries of these, holders of general health insurance and their dependents. An institution might provide more payment to a civil servant than they deserve due to reasons originating from the civil servant themselves or the administration. The purpose of this study is to explain in detail what overpayment and undue payment are and describe operations regarding collection of overpayments and undue payments, calculation of interest to be applied on these and accounting for it by providing examples.

Citation

Akçakanat, Ö. and Duran, T. (2021), "Overpayment and Undue Payment Operations in Publıc Sector Accountıng and their Accounting Process", Grima, S. and Boztepe, E. (Ed.) Contemporary Issues in Public Sector Accounting and Auditing (Contemporary Studies in Economic and Financial Analysis, Vol. 105), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 143-156. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1569-375920200000105010