The United States government has made incentive payments in the amount of $ 1.4 billion (€ 1.24 billion) to dead people due to the rush to inject money into the economy, reported this Thursday the Office of Accountability of the Donald Trump administration.
The Treasury Department, working with the IRS, rushed to deliver nearly $ 270 billion (€ 239 billion) in economic stimulus payments to Americans this spring, but part of the money went into the wrong accounts.
“The agencies faced difficulties in delivering payments to some individuals and faced additional risks related to undue payments to ineligible individuals, such as deceased and fraud,” the report reads.
The report noted that the IRS typically uses Social Security death records to prevent undue payments, but this did not happen with the first three batches of payments. The Treasury Department “did not use death records to lock in payments to deceased individuals” because of a local interpretation.
The Accountability Office recommended that the IRS find ways to notify ineligible recipients of payments for the return to be made, although it has not explained how this would be done for those who died. He also suggested that Congresse ensure that the Treasury department and the tax office, which distributed the payments, obtained full access to Social Security death records to help prevent money from being paid to dead people.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in April that the deceased’s heirs who received money from the incentives should return the funds.
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