IRS, Treasury Department Sent $1.4 Billion in Stimulus Checks To Dead United States Treasury coronavirus stimulus payment (Image: iStock/filo)
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report Wednesday saying the IRS and Treasury Department delivered $1.4 billion in stimulus payments to dead people.
According to the New York Times, the GAO report said the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service pumped a chunk of money to people no longer alive in a race to deliver more than $270 billion in stimulus payments at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The agencies faced difficulties delivering payments to some individuals, and faced additional risks related to making improper payments to ineligible individuals, such as decedents, and fraud,” the report stated.
The report, titled Opportunities to Improve Federal Response and Recovery Efforts, added the although the IRS typically uses death records from the Social Security Administration in order to prevent improper payments, that did not happen with the first three rounds of stimulus payments.
Additionally, the report said IRS lawyers “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.”
