The days of the Pentagon’s multi-thousand-dollar toilet seat may be in the past, but waste, fraud and abuse are still bugaboos of the federal government’s internecine funding and accountability practices, costing the central government $300 billion per year.

According to a survey by MeriTalk of employees at the Department of Defense (DoD), the Institute of Medicine and the House Health Subcommittee, and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), there are $162 billion in savings opportunities that could be achieved through proactive technology measures, like the successful deployment of data analytics.

MeriTalk, a public-private partnership focused on improving the outcomes of government IT, laid out the results of its research in its report, “Stealing from Uncle Sam,” sponsored by EMC (News - Alert) Corporation. And the results are worrying.

Over half (59 percent) of feds in the survey say their agency is the victim of some kind of citizen fraud at least daily. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) say their agency is targeted by fraudsters at least weekly. And according to government experts, fraudsters are using identity theft, falsification of financial records, and other scams to get their hands on money from the government and taxpayers.

Disappointingly, the research also found that just 15 percent of those surveyed assert that their agencies have fully deployed analytics to fight fraud. In fact, a full 42 percent of agencies are not employing any offensive tactics to proactively tackle fraud, waste and abuse.

However, that’s not to say that agencies aren’t aware of the need for improvement; the report said that 57 percent of feds say their agency considers preventing fraud and improper payments as one of its top three priorities. But, challenges abound, namely budget.

About half (48 percent) said that combining data from different sources is a top issue, as is the need to comb through large amounts of data (46 percent). Crucially, another 46 percent said that employing workforces with the skills necessary to combat fraud, waste and abuse is the top concern. All of this takes money, which is something that many federal agencies don’t have.

“Don’t be penny wise and dollar foolish,” said Marshall Presser, Federal Field CTO at Pivotal. “A lot of anti-fraud projects ultimately will pay for themselves. Enabling interagency cooperation and intra-agency cooperation is key – some people don’t want to dilute their power by sharing their data. But, being proactive and examining the origins of fraud can help greatly.”

He’s got a point. According to the report’s analysis, the government has a not-great track record so far on the fraud front, to say the least: In 2010, the Medicare program paid out an estimated $48 billion in improper payments, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. In just the past few years, Social Security paid $133 million to dead beneficiaries. The Internal Revenue Service paid an estimated $5.8 billion in fraudulent tax returns across nearly three million fraudulent tax refunds in the 2014 filing season. Some scammers file numerous tax returns in a day. The IRS reportedly sent $46 million in refunds to “unauthorized” workers at one Atlanta address.

“The numbers tell their own story,” said Steve O’Keeffe, founder at MeriTalk. “Why pay your taxes when crooks are stealing your deposits? We’re all for helping the sick and elderly – but unless we get a grip on fraud, ACA’s DOA. These are taxing problems that impact the health of our society. We need to act now.”