Tens of thousands of Americans have already received 2 stimulus checks – by mistake
As lawmakers consider another round of coronavirus stimulus payments, here’s what went wrong
Lawmakers are working on potentially issuing another round of economic impact payments to financially support American households, but new data shows that some people erroneously received two checks on the first go-round.
According to a recently released report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, about 98 percent of payments issued by the IRS were correct.
That means nearly 154 million of the 157 million checks issued as of May 21 were accurate.
Others, however, were either inaccurate in amount or sent to people who are not considered eligible.
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One complication that arose, according to the report, is that thousands of people received duplicate payments.
About 46,760 individuals mistakenly received two payments as of May 21, an error totaling more than $69 million. This included people who filed as "married filing jointly" in 2018 as the secondary taxpayer on a return but filed as single in 2019, and vice versa.
The IRS is asking these people to voluntarily return the duplicate payments.
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Another 1.2 million payments (less than 1 percent of the 157 million) went to dead or incarcerated individuals.
Additionally, 309,601 payments were issued to people who were likely nonresidents.
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Meanwhile, some people still have not received their payments. Those people include more than 1.3 million Social Security and Veterans Administration beneficiaries.
Administration officials and top Republican lawmakers have indicated that another stimulus check is a possibility. Here’s a look at what we know about some of the limitations being discussed so far.