“Return the entire payment unless the payment was made to joint filers and one spouse had not died before receipt of the payment, in which case, you only need to return the portion of the payment made on account of the decedent,” the agency said.
People who are incarcerated and „non-resident alien[s]“ also are not eligible for the payments, the IRS said.
The notice comes after reports of the deceased receiving $1,200 checks authorized by the recent coronavirus relief package. Critics have seized on the payments as evidence of government mismanagement.
The government has been trying to prevent payments from going to the dead by cross-referencing them with death records maintained by the Social Security Administration.
But the government does not have real-time information on when people die and, with the coronavirus killing more than 65,000 people since late March — just as the IRS was simultaneously scrambling to distribute millions of checks — some inevitably went to the dead.
President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have said they wanted the payments returned.
The plan could put the IRS in a tricky spot, though it’s unclear how strenuous its efforts would be in recollecting such payments. It’s also possible, perhaps even likely, that Congress will overturn the decision as part of another coronavirus relief plan under consideration.
At the same time, some tax experts have questioned whether the IRS has the authority to recall the payments, saying at least some dead people, depending on when they died, are actually entitled to the money.
They note there’s nothing in the legislation barring payments to the departed. And they note that the dead can normally get refunds on returns filed after they’ve died. The IRS has a special form for requesting a refund on behalf of the dead. It’s also possible for the deceased to owe the IRS.
The decision to ask for the money back contrasts with what the government decided in 2008, when lawmakers offered similar stimulus checks to millions of Americans and some ended up going to the deceased.
Back then, the IRS said survivors could keep the money.
Source: politico.com
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