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Everyone is responsible for upholding unemployment insurance (UI) integrity. Individuals, employers and Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) staff are expected to act honestly and in good faith. Integrity helps IWD prevent errors, fraud and abuse by those who do not follow the UI rules.
Unemployment Insurance Fraud
Fraud is knowingly providing false information or withholding information to receive UI benefits. Fraudulently collecting UI benefits is a serious offense. It can lead to severe penalties, including:
- Criminal prosecution, fines and imprisonment.
- Denial of future benefits by administrative penalty.
- Repayment of fraudulently collected UI benefits, plus a 15 percent penalty and daily interest.
- Wage garnishments and liens.
- Interception of state and federal tax refunds.
 IWD uses automatic wage cross-match programs, claim audits and additional investigative tools to detect fraud. IWD also compares state and federal new hire reports to UI claims to ensure that individuals who have returned to work full-time are no longer collecting benefits and individuals who are working part-time are reporting correct earnings. Claim audits are also conducted to confirm work searches were completed for each employer listed on the work search record.
In addition, IWD has partnered with the Social Security Administration (SSA) in a program that verifies the identity of an individual who has applied for UI benefits. The claimant’s full legal name, Social Security Number, date of birth, and gender are cross-matched against the records of the SSA prior to any benefits being paid. 
As of July 1, 2018, Individuals who have received UI benefits fraudulently, and have outstanding fraud debt including penalty, interest and lien fees, are ineligible to receive UI benefits until the full amount of the debt is paid. Refer to the claimant handbook section regarding Overpayment for further information.
If an individual thinks they may have mistakenly reported incorrect information, they should contact IWD to correct the situation before an investigation begins. 
Quality Control Reviews
In addition to Employer Audits by the Tax Bureau Field Audit team, to ensure your UI account is being charged correctly, IWD randomly selects claimants via UI claims and benefit decisions each week for review to determine if benefits were accurately paid or denied. The audits are conducted by IWD Integrity’s Benefit Accuracy Measurement (BAM) team. Selected claimants are required to participate in the review as a condition of continuing eligibility of their UI benefits.
As part of the BAM audit process, Employers are contacted to provide wage records for the selected claimant and separation information. Information is reviewed independently of what may have been supplied to IWD previously during the normal course of procedures to determine accuracy. If the BAM Auditor determines wages were incorrectly reported, a wage investigation or adjustment will be remitted to the Tax Bureau for review and possible corrections. This may result in additional contribution being owed to IWD or a credit created if corrections are required. Refer to the BAM audit instructions for any questions regarding the process. Refer to the IWD claimant handbook for specific information that is required of the claimant.