US: Mistakenly sent $1.4 billion in Covid-19 relief to the deceased
(Baonghean.vn) - The Trump administration's reputation has declined as the government's accountability agency has discovered that the US Treasury Department mistakenly sent $1.4 billion in Covid-19 relief funds to people who have died.
The $1.4 billion in payments has been sent to more than 1.1 million deceased people. It is unclear how many of the cases were due to errors in the Treasury system or intentional fraud.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released the information about the erroneous payments at a time when US President Donald Trump and some members of his administration are lobbying Congress to approve another round of financial support for people affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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| More than 1 million people have died in the US but still received support money to overcome difficulties due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: AFP |
The payments to the deceased occurred as the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service rushed to disburse about $160 million of the $269 billion in funds from the $2 trillion Cares Act approved by Congress in March to respond to Covid-19.
Although the government requires those who receive the funds to return the money sent by mistake, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) currently has no specific plan for the process and procedures for returning the funds sent by mistake to the deceased, because the law does not clearly state whether they are required to return them or not.
Nina Olson, a former IRS official in charge of taxpayer assistance, noted that there is no law preventing the IRS from sending money to a deceased taxpayer or their next of kin who must repay the money to the government.
Aggressively pursuing this money also risks becoming a politically sensitive gamble for the US Treasury. Some of the cases may have died in the first months of the outbreak in the US.
Keith Fogg, a tax law expert at Harvard University, predicts that the IRS will not seek to collect the money that was mistakenly sent, but the fastest way is for the IRS to find a way to compensate for the refund in the future.
Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of the group Public Citizen, acknowledged that the issue of collection is sensitive. However, the amount is too large to ignore, especially at a time when the country's economy is in free fall.
“This situation is an inevitable consequence of the US government rushing to disburse billions of dollars in crisis aid.”
The reason for the misdirection was partly due to the fact that GAO had access to the Social Security Administration's complete death notice list, but the Treasury Department and its Bureau of Financial Services, which handles the remittances, did not have access to that list.
Additionally, the GAO found that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported incomplete and inconsistent data from state and local health departments about testing numbers nationwide, making it difficult to get a full picture of the spread of the infection.
Therefore, GAO urges Congress to consider amending the Social Security Act to allow agencies to share data more widely, reducing inappropriate payments.
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| Treasury Secretary Steven Munich introduces a debit card to President Donald Trump for Covid-19 relief payments in May. Photo: The Washington Post |
New cases have surged in recent weeks as some states have begun to lift restrictions to reopen their economies. The GAO’s findings have prompted Democrats to accuse Republicans and the Trump administration of failing to provide oversight.
This is not the first time the government has mistakenly sent money to a deceased person. Thousands of deceased people have also benefited from social security packages when receiving economic support money after the 2008-2009 financial crisis./.
