What to do with a stimulus check for a dead person
Q. What should you do if you received one of those stimulus checks for a relative who is deceased? Can you cash it?
A. Alas, no. The IRS says a stimulus payment made to someone who died before receiving it should be returned to the government. The entire payment should be returned, unless it was made payable to joint filers and one spouse is still alive. In that case, you only need to return the portion of the payment made on account of the deceased person. This amount will be $1,200, unless your joint adjusted gross income exceeded $150,000.
If you received a paper stimulus check and you have not cashed it, follow these steps:
Write “Void” in the endorsement section on the back of the check.
Mail the voided check immediately to the appropriate IRS location. (Go to IRS.gov and search for the Economic Impact Payment Information Center to find the IRS location for you.)
Don’t staple, bend or paper clip the check.
Include a note stating the reason for returning the check.
If the payment was by paper check and you have cashed it, or if the payment was a direct deposit, follow these steps:
Submit a personal check, money order, etc., immediately to the appropriate IRS location.
Make the check/money order payable to “U.S. Treasury.”
Write “2020EIP” and the deceased person’s taxpayer identification number (Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number) on the check or money order.
Include a brief explanation of the reason for returning the payment.
The IRS sent nearly 1.1 million stimulus checks — totaling about $1.4 billion — to dead people. And that’s just through April. When stimulus checks were approved in late March, the tax agency worked feverishly to get payments out the door as quickly as possible.
Well, haste makes waste. By focusing so much on speed, the IRS left a few holes wide open — like sending checks to dead people.
Rocky Mengle is tax editor at Kiplinger. For more on this and similar money topics, visit Kiplinger.com.