About $1.6 billion worth of stimulus payments to nearly 645,000 people who were eligible to receive them still had not hit bank accounts by mid-September, according to a report by the Treasury Department.
The third round of economic impact payments, which were valued at up to $1,400 each, were authorized as part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration outlined the errors and discrepancies with the distribution of the payments in a Thursday report.
The review of processed tax returns identified 644,705 eligible individuals who had not received their payments by Sept. 16 of last year; those missing funds totaled $1.6 billion, according to the office.
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“These include individuals who have an [individual taxpayer identification number] who did not receive a payment for their eligible dependents with a valid [social security number] and individuals who were eligible based on the IRS’s adjustment of their unemployment income exclusion from taxable income,” the report read.
The watchdog also identified 294,274 people who were issued a stimulus payment but whose access to their stimulus funds was delayed or who had not yet accessed the funds.
In addition to those who were eligible and didn’t receive their payments, the report found that an estimated 1.2 million people who received the last round of stimulus checks were “potentially ineligible” to receive those payments, an amount totaling $1.9 billion.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Treasury Department for further clarification about those 1.2 million individuals but did not receive a response.
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The report concluded that the IRS correctly issued payments to 167.4 million people by mid-September, about 99.5% of the total.
The third round of payments that were authorized under Biden began hitting bank accounts in March of last year after the American Rescue Plan was signed. The first and second rounds of stimulus payouts, sent out under then-President Donald Trump, included disbursements worth up to $1,200 and $600, respectively.
