Auditors from a government safety net program have so far recovered more than $1 million from prairie farmers who included increased freight bills as part of their 1996 grain sales.
A spokesperson for the Net Income Stabilization Account said the government expects to recover another $2 million by the end of the calendar year.
Reg Grenier said more than 14,000 farmers have responded out of 16,500 audited for their 1996 NISA contributions. The NISA administration has reviewed more than 6,000 of the responses. Out of this group, about 60 percent of farmers overstated their sales.
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Most of the excess government contributions have been withdrawn from farmers’ NISA accounts.
However, about eight percent of the farmers who owe NISA don’t have any money in their NISA accounts. Grenier said they will receive a bill in the mail.
NISA administrators expect to hear in the next couple of weeks from most of the 2,500 farmers who have not yet responded to the audit.
For those who still don’t respond, Grenier said NISA will use an estimate of freight values to reduce their NISA accounts. Those farmers will then have two years to send in their 1996 sales information.
That was the first year farmers faced dramatically higher freight bills because of the loss of the Crow transportation sales.
Many farmers included freight as part of grain sales, making them eligible for more government safety net money.
