from the bring-out-your-dead...peoples'-money dept.
IRS Orders The Dead To Return Stimulus Money:
One week after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that dead people aren't eligible for stimulus check after it emerged that an unknown number of recently deceased Americans had received a $1200 tax credit as part of the coronavirus helicopter money package, the Internal Revenue Service [...] announced that individuals who got a $1,200 stimulus payment intended for someone who's deceased or incarcerated should return the money. It wasn't clear how the IRS will "enforce" collecting from the dead or their relatives.
[...] Instructions posted to the IRS's website Wednesday said recipients of what the Treasury Department calls "inadvertent" payments should write void on paper checks and mail them back[...]. Even more amusing were instructions to those who received direct-deposit payments or have already cashed the payments: they should send a personal check or money order to the IRS for the amount of the payment.
Deceased and incarcerated individuals do not qualify to receive Economic Impact Payments. See FAQ #41 to learn how to return an inadvertent payment: https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/economic-impact-payment-information-center
— Treasury Department (@USTreasury) May 6, 2020
[...] The IRS excessive generosity was noticed last month, when it[sic] people in prison and family members of individuals who had died in the past several months were receiving payments. The reason is that while the federal government regularly updates taxpayer rolls with death certificate information, the IRS was relying on data that in some cases was from as long ago as 2018 for processing the payments.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NPC-131072 on Friday May 08 2020, @12:29AM (16 children)
Hope they still turn out to vote [politico.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday May 08 2020, @01:55AM (15 children)
Oh.
Are we pretending Rudy Giuliani is not a lying scumbag now?
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 08 2020, @03:22AM (14 children)
No, we're flat out saying that dead people vote almost exclusively Democrat.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ilPapa on Friday May 08 2020, @03:41AM (9 children)
And yet, every case of election fraud or voter fraud in the past 25 years has been perpetrated by Republicans, you lying sonofabitch.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/election-fraud-is-real-and-it-involves-a-republican.html [nymag.com]
https://prospect.org/civil-rights/voter-fraud-myth-and-truth-about-US-elections/ [prospect.org]
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression/myth-voter-fraud [brennancenter.org]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 08 2020, @01:15PM (2 children)
Every case? Really? You're an authority on this? Failing that, you have links from organizations not actively financially backing the Dems?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by cmdrklarg on Friday May 08 2020, @03:56PM (1 child)
Where's your proof that it's always Democrats? You made the assertion; it's your job to prove it without biased evidence.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 09 2020, @11:42AM
Proof? You need proof for shit talking now? Someone needs to keep me apprised of these things.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @04:22PM
Well so much for this site being better than Slashdot.
(Score: 3, Informative) by istartedi on Friday May 08 2020, @04:43PM (4 children)
This source [heritage.org] will be subject to just as much criticism of bias as your sources, but it details actual criminal cases of voter fraud--something they can't really lie about because it's pretty easy to verify a criminal conviction as a matter of public record. Unfortunately they don't break down the cases by party. A quick grep of the document reveals 18 matches of "Republican", 1 "GOP", and 74 of "Democratic". This is not a very good way to break it down though. No doubt, the compilers of a list at Heritage would be more inclined to point out Democratic Party affiliation in these cases. Skimming over the case descriptions, many of them don't mention the party at all, so this list doesn't really help us decide which party is more corrupt than the other in this regard.
Maybe we can at least agree that there are a lot of bad politicians out there.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ilPapa on Saturday May 09 2020, @02:48AM (2 children)
You will notice that your "source" carefully omits the dates of these infractions, but the few that do show a date go back as far as 1994. In a presidential year, aas many as about 140 MILLION people will vote. In a midterm, it can go as high as 53 MILLION. So, not counting off-year elections, even assuming that your "source" covers 1994 to present, Americans have cast in the neighborhood of ONE BILLION votes. And your "source" points to about 1000 instances of voter fraud (but strangely, only 949 convictions).
Now, I'm a little drunk over here on homemade COVID brandy, but that sounds like as many as 0.0000949% of the votes cast have been fraudulent. Which is approximately the same as saying IT FUCKING NEVER HAPPENS.
Also, you will notice that most of those 949 convictions are for "ineligible voting" which means a) they attempted to vote in the wrong polling place or county or b) had a criminal felony on their record so were banned from voting.
On the other hand, if you're interested in some more significant numbers (almost entirely GOP), then let's look at the instances of ELECTION FRAUD, which involves quite a few more votes than some 60 year-old guy trying to vote when he'd been busted for an ounce of weed when he was 18.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/08/politics/ken-buck-colorado-state-senate-election/index.html [cnn.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/opinion/voter-fraud-republicans.html [nytimes.com]
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-north-carolina/north-carolina-republican-operative-charged-in-election-fraud-scheme-idUSKCN1QG2FS [reuters.com]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday May 09 2020, @07:49AM (1 child)
It says right at the very top, in a large font of ALL CAP bold letters that it is A SAMPLING OF ELECTION FRAUD. Just to the right of that, it says it's "not an exhaustive list". Maybe you missed that because it was right at the top of the document, and larger than all the other text. :)
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ilPapa on Saturday May 09 2020, @01:37PM
Funny that, because after all these years of hearing Republicans complain about "rampant voter fraud", and years of high-level nationwide investigations (remember Kansas' Kris Kobach?) they still can't produce numbers that show it's anything but extremely rare.
And you still can't get a Republican to address the actual ELECTION FRAUD (I put it in ALL CAPS because you seem to respond to that) that has been provably perpetrated by Republicans.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 09 2020, @11:44AM
I appreciate the putting actual work into it but it's not really necessary when someone's just shit talking using stereotypes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @07:28AM (1 child)
Not true, most of the Dead People I know vote Trump. They also are constantly moaning, "Brains! Brains!" I don't know why. Perhaps a deficit in their diet of Fox News?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 08 2020, @01:16PM
Almost funny. If you'd left the last sentence off it would have been some quality zing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @02:43PM (1 child)
So you're voting Republican.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 09 2020, @11:46AM
Shurg, doubt it. I tend to not enjoy voting for the lesser evil, so I may very well write in Donald Duck this time around.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @12:31AM (6 children)
So what's the cutoff on this, if you were alive when the bill was signed but died before the check was written, is your corpse obliged to return it? What if you died while it was in the mail? Or after the direct deposit cleared but before you checked the balance to see it was there? What if your corpse hasn't been found yet?
Asking for a friend ...
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday May 08 2020, @01:57AM (1 child)
So the US is a country of 320 million people who live in 50 different states?
I'm not surprised mistakes were made.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Friday May 08 2020, @06:32AM
In an organisation that hands out government money, and is using two years old lists of acceptable recipients, I would expect the people responsible for using two year old data to be held personally responsible for the repayments. (Except where they can prove the recipient is a Zombie).
This is America - you have the right to remain dead! (I am uncertain about the right to remain undead).
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @08:00AM (3 children)
It is an advance payment of a tax credit for this year's taxes. Technically, you qualify if you were alive on 12:00 AM on January 1st.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @08:20AM (2 children)
For fucks sake. The IRS claims you can't get it if you are dead before you cash the check. Other sources say the usual tax rules apply for general eligibility because of where it appears in the Tax Code.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday May 09 2020, @04:23AM (1 child)
What I want to know is... how do dead people cash checks??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2020, @05:48AM
Same way they do anything else with their money: through the executor of their estate. Their representative can do all sorts of things on their behalf, including sue others, be sued by others, file taxes, and get a tax refund.
Those last two are somewhat important for the thread. As codified, this is an advanced payment of a 2020 tax credit. It is in the code (26 U.S.C. § 6428) with a number of other "special" credits that are generally applicable. The problem is subsection (d)(3) that says that an "Eligible individual" does not include "an estate or trust." The difference in opinion is that the individual who was alive for part of 2020, and therefore qualifies for other credits, should qualify for this credit. This is distinct from their estate getting the credit on their behalf or qualifying on its own, since estates can exist for years (usually two but can be longer) to complete the probate process. Either way, expect estate attorneys to take the shot on 2020 tax returns for people who died before getting the money but were alive for at least part of this year. There is probably a race already for a class action to be certified at some of the larger firms.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday May 08 2020, @12:35AM (2 children)
They're busy paying dead people, and meanwhile I haven't seen a dime of that $1200.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @01:48AM
It would likely take longer if they were vetting the recipients more. It was already likely illegal to keep the money if the person died prior to receiving the money, this is just them saying that you can't keep it if you weren't affected. I could see the logic of allowing the estate to keep the money if the person died during the pandemic, especially if they died as a result of contracting covid-19, but anybody that died between then and last filing their taxes shouldn't be paid.
Those that did die recently should have had life insurance if their loved ones needed the money.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Friday May 08 2020, @09:37PM
I got mine and they're not getting out of my dead hands! They'll have to revive me first!
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 08 2020, @12:39AM (12 children)
I really don't think dead people can be legally obligated to do anything at all. We need some legal scholars to figure this out.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @01:51AM (3 children)
Strictly speaking, this is just how it's handled. Since dead people weren't supposed to receive the money, the estate would be responsible for returning the money or not cashing the check as appropriate.
In any case, those that die can't spend the money and many of their debts might already be written off, so there's little point in giving them money.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Friday May 08 2020, @02:12AM (2 children)
no - make them return it in person.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Funny) by khallow on Friday May 08 2020, @02:57AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @04:04AM
angry angry zombies? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA7vxeXcvLs [youtube.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 08 2020, @03:25AM (3 children)
Except vote Democrat, you mean? I swear, I'm coming back as a zombie or vampire or whatever just so they can't make me vote for those shitstains.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Friday May 08 2020, @07:08AM (2 children)
Is there any reliable data as to the voting intentions of zombies?
While there would appear to be evidence of zombies voting, it is my understanding that zombies are not capable of intentions, but I could be wrong.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @07:18AM
Speaking as a zombie, it is definitely my intention to vote for Trump.
Or against him.
I shall consult the ghost of W C Fields for advice on the matter.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 08 2020, @01:17PM
Dems keep insisting they're smarter. Zombies lurve brains. Do the math.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday May 08 2020, @06:36AM
You can legally obligate dead people to do whatever you want. Whether the dead people will do it is another story. A story that begins with the word "zombie" and ends with the word "apocalypse".
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @07:30AM (2 children)
Was gonna ask, does this mean Runaway1956 has to pay back his stimulus? I mean, it is so hard for him to get stimulated in the first place! Seems like a cock-blocker move, only with real chickens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @10:02AM
Go take his guns and we'll talk after about the appropriate stimulus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @02:47PM
Brain dead doesn't count.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @12:58AM (4 children)
I am dead, and I ain't returning no money.
Fuck you IRS, cocksucker scums, go after Trump/Kushners, motherfuckers.
(hehehe, I used to be a "beltway bandit", and man, even for fed bureaucrats, IRS is one of the, if not the most, corrupt incompetent branch of the fed - this ain't the ones that took out al Capone)
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 08 2020, @01:07AM (1 child)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is that you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @01:55AM
More likely Giuliani. The man clearly died in 9/11 and nobody bothered to tell him.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday May 08 2020, @01:27PM (1 child)
They get their money back when they pry it from my cold, dead.... Huh... Well alright then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @09:22PM
They will get their money back, over my dead body ...
(Score: 5, Informative) by lentilla on Friday May 08 2020, @02:19AM (1 child)
In the grand scheme of things, $1200 is not a lot of money - if we assume the data is up to a year out of date and the average life expectancy is 79 years, then at worst the Man is out an additional 1.3%. Per the Law of Diminishing Returns [wikipedia.org] at some point the administration costs of working out who is alive beforehand and then categorising returned payments into "dead" or simply "moved house" will cost more than simply making an occasional mistake. 1% is pretty good for a project this size - and is certainly not an egregious waste of taxpayer money.
One might indignantly complain that dead people were talking money out of the hands of the living - because an additional 1.3% would make it $1215.19 instead ...except that it wouldn't because that $1200 number was chosen because it was a nice round number, and not too large and not too small.
And, at the end of the day, even dead people have bills to pay. Funerals, for example. Justify it how you will - on compassionate grounds you could say it helps the families of the recently deceased with end-of-life arrangements, and economic rationalists can say it stimulates the funeral sector.
Don't you think writing a cheque on monies received by direct deposit sounds exactly like an Advance Fee scam [wikipedia.org]?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @04:28AM
Not only that, the alleged goal of the money is economic stimulus. Spending it does that, even if some bereaved people get extra.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday May 08 2020, @02:29AM (1 child)
The IRS is the only company that can afford to screw up, then order their "customers" to clean up the mess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @10:07AM
All the other enterprises don't even bother cleaning up the mess.
(Score: 3, Touché) by EJ on Friday May 08 2020, @02:49AM (2 children)
Some might say that they have no legal jurisdiction over the dead, but we must remember that suicide is illegal. I support the government's responsibility to prosecute any dead people to the fullest extent of the law.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @07:24AM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @07:34AM
We can dig them up, put them on trial, just like the Catholic church did with the Bad Pope [wikipedia.org], and I assume we can exhume the same of Reagan? The Republicans are the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @03:26AM
If the date of death is before the target payment date then the deceased should not get the money. If it's on that date or after the deceased's estate should get the money.
[1] Which could be different from the actual date of death (death only discovered later so it's more of a guess etc).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Friday May 08 2020, @04:26AM
If the IRS direct deposited such a payment into the account of Hotblack Desiato while he was spending a year dead for tax purposes, would he have to send it back?
I'm sure a PhD thesis in economics could be written about the tax implications.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday May 08 2020, @04:23PM
What if he's only mostly dead [youtube.com]? And note, if he's all dead you get to go through his clothes and look for loose change.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday May 09 2020, @07:29AM
Did anyone that died of coronavirus get a check?
That would be pretty horrific (and ironic) if their families are asked to send back the check in these cases.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P