IRS Orders the Dead to Return Stimulus Money
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_:
IRS Orders The Dead To Return Stimulus Money:
One week after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that dead people aren't eligible for stimulus check after it emerged that an unknown number of recently deceased Americans had received a $1200 tax credit as part of the coronavirus helicopter money package, the Internal Revenue Service [...] announced that individuals who got a $1,200 stimulus payment intended for someone who's deceased or incarcerated should return the money. It wasn't clear how the IRS will "enforce" collecting from the dead or their relatives.
[...] Instructions posted to the IRS's website Wednesday said recipients of what the Treasury Department calls "inadvertent" payments should write void on paper checks and mail them back[...]. Even more amusing were instructions to those who received direct-deposit payments or have already cashed the payments: they should send a personal check or money order to the IRS for the amount of the payment.
Deceased and incarcerated individuals do not qualify to receive Economic Impact Payments. See FAQ #41 to learn how to return an inadvertent payment: https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/economic-impact-payment-information-center
- Treasury Department (@USTreasury) May 6, 2020
[...] The IRS excessive generosity was noticed last month, when it[sic] people in prison and family members of individuals who had died in the past several months were receiving payments. The reason is that while the federal government regularly updates taxpayer rolls with death certificate information, the IRS was relying on data that in some cases was from as long ago as 2018 for processing the payments.
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