The Treasury Department says roughly 70% of the stimulus checks that were sent to dead citizens have been recovered by the federal government, according to a report from a government watchdog.
A Treasury official told the Government Accountability Office that nearly $1.12 billion of the $1.6 billion that was wrongfully distributed to the deceased during the coronavirus pandemic has been recovered. However, the Government Accountability Office was unable to verify independently that 70% had been returned by the time the office published the report on Monday.
The Government Accountability Office had urged the Treasury in June to find cost-effective ways of educating the public on how to return the payments to the federal government if they should not have received one on behalf of a deceased relative. The report noted that the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service had been posting resources online to help recover checks. The checks had been wrongfully sent to 1.2 million individuals.
“Treasury and IRS have taken steps to implement this recommendation and are considering further actions,” the report stated.
The federal government disbursed checks to most families, with $1,200 per adult and $500 per child, after President Trump signed a $2.2 trillion economic relief package into law in late March. Congress had discussed doing another round of payments, but negotiations between House Democrats and Senate Republicans have stalled.
