Has the IRS canceled stimulus checks for deceased recipients?
The Bureau of Fiscal Services has canceled outstanding checks sent to non-eligible recipients, including the some 1.1 billion issued to deceased US citizens.
The US Treasury Department has started the process of recovering stimulus checks sent out to deceased US citizens during the coronavirus pandemic, the IRS has confirmed. Nearly $1.4 billion in coronavirus stimulus payments was wrongly sent to some 1.1 million deceased people in the US under the CARES Act according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, an independent watchdog.
According to the IRS the FBI have been tasked with tracking down people who erroneously received stimulus checks. In the case of the more than one million checks issued to people who have passed away, the IRS states: “A payment made to someone who died before receipt of the payment should be returned to the IRS by following the instructions about repayments.”
Stimulus checks sent to deceased recipients canceled
The Bureau of Fiscal Services, which along with the IRS is overseen by the US Treasury Department, has “cancelled outstanding Economic Impact Payment checks to non-eligible recipients, including those who may be deceased.”
The IRS also noted that if a check had been issued jointly to a married couple and one spouse has since passed away, the check should be returned and a new individual one will be reissued after receipt of the original.
The IRS has further details explaining how the error occurred and how recipients can return stimulus check payments on its website.
The Internal Revenue Service has sent out in the region 160 million stimulus checks totaling some $267 billion since the CARES Act was approved in late March amid the coronavirus crisis. Eligible Americans received a single payment of $1,200 per individual and up to $2,400 per household, plus an extra $500 for dependent children.