Defense Contractor to Pay $4 Million for Alleged Improper Billing
Mission1st Group Inc., a Virginia-based military contractor which provided program management, systems engineering, and information technology and communications, will pay $4.02 million to resolve allegations that it improperly billed the United States for extra payments to employees – known as uplifts – that were not actually paid to them.
Employees of civilian contractors in support of military forces stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are entitled to uplifts to their salaries, in the form of danger pay and hazardous-duty pay. Mission1st allegedly billed the government uplifts for employees, without paying those to them. It also allegedly billed for FICA taxes on the uplifts, which were in most instances in excess of the statutory cap for the affected employees, and retained those excess tax payments as well.
