Posted on 06/26/2020 7:39:34 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a House panel on Friday that the Internal Revenue Service knew it was sending out stimulus payments to dead people.
Gene Dodaro, comptroller general of GAO, said the IRS sent his own mother a $1,200 payment earlier this year even though she died in February 2018.
“My sister got it; of course she returned it,” he said. “A lot of other people didn’t know” they’re supposed to return the money if they receive payments for a relative who’s died.
Dodaro recommended that the IRS contact people who received payments and try and recoup the money. On Thursday, a GAO report found that the IRS sent nearly $1.4 billion of payments to some 1.1 million deceased people.
“What happened was: IRS initially determined that deceased people, or anybody who filed a return in 2018 or 2019 should be paid, so they knew they were paying people who were deceased,” he said. “Then it became known publicly, Treasury then reevaluated that position and stopped it.”
Due to the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the office said the IRS didn’t use death records to stop payments to deceased people “because of the legal interpretation under which IRS was operating.”
IRS counsel later “determined that IRS did not have the legal authority to deny payments to those who filed a return for 2019, even if they were deceased at the time of payment,” the GAO report found.
Dodaro said that a number of citizens have messaged the office saying they have checks that were sent out. Dodaro said Congress should pass a legislative fix to the issue. He added, “It could be payment for agriculture, education, or whatever, so I’d encourage you to do that.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
It was a tax refund. If someone paid taxes during the tax year the estate should get the refund.
It would certainly get spent.
And yet they’ve still been unable to get mine to me. Supposedly was sent 22 May.
I got one for my dad who died 20 months before. I mailed it back as directed. I should have sent it to you.
Mine was sent out around May 1st. Still haven’t received.
There is no way to track the check, or complain. I guess it the check was stolen and cashed, there is no way to find out.
I got one last week in May for $2400, Made out to my wife and me, just deposited it today. My wife passed away Oct. 27, 2018. Beside her name on the check was the word “Deceased”
My 21 year old daughter did not get hers, so I deposited $1200 in her account.
.
General Incompetence from the grunts to the bureaucrats at the top. Systemic handsitting.
DOWNSIZE BIG GOVERNMENT
.
This may have been less a matter of incompetence than of a desire to get checks out to people who needed them as quickly as possible; and a product not only of the rush to get it done quickly, but of limited staffing during the various lockdowns.
As others on this thread have noted, many honest people sent those checks back. But how many didn’t?
We have to exhibit competence and integrity ourselves, and not just expect it from the government.
:-(
So sorry for your loss.
Very nice of you to deposit your late wife’s amount into your dear daughters account.
L8r
Sorry for your loss.
At least I finally got the tax refund a couple days ago. Only took them almost 4 months to process it.
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