Filing deadline set for dependent checks
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, under pressure from lawmakers and advocates, has reversed course by allowing hundreds of thousands of low-income and disabled Americans until Sept. 30 to file for the $500 pandemic checks for dependents.
The U.S. Treasury Department and IRS announced Friday they will reopen an online portal that had been closed to people who don’t file annual tax returns because they rely entirely on government benefits. Those individuals receive Social Security retirement benefits, survivor or disability benefits, or Railroad Retirement Board benefits and therefore would have no or minimal income to report to the IRS for tax purposes.
The announcement came after five Pennsylvanians and a Philadelphia nonprofit filed a lawsuit last month that argued President Donald Trump’s administration deprived due process rights of those beneficiaries by shutting the portal to them after a short window in late April.
While the IRS agreed to automatically issue $1,200 direct checks to those beneficiaries, it required nonfilers to file claims for the $500 checks for dependents through a hastily constructed online portal that the IRS never directly announced to those beneficiaries.
The IRS issued a special alert on April 20 — communicated through a news release and social media accounts — giving people as little as about 48 hours to claim their payments. Those who missed the deadline, the IRS previously announced, would be forced to wait until 2021 to receive their checks.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs argued the administration had failed to follow Congress’ intent when it established the direct payments as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES
Act, signed into law on March 27.
In a statement on Sunday evening, a lawyer for the plaintiffs confirmed the IRS’ announcement would grant relief to those who had missed the deadline.
“We are pleased that IRS is taking this important step to allow thousands of federal benefits recipients to seek the child stimulus payments for which they are eligible now, after they weren’t given adequate time to do so in the spring,” said Jennifer Burdick, an attorney with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, which filed the lawsuit along with Villanova Tax Law Clinic and a law
firm, Berger Montague.
“As Congress intended, this injection of emergency money will help families facing unprecedented financial challenges as a result of the coronavirus,” Ms. Burdick said.
Ms. Burdick added the group is “still considering the implications of IRS’ new policy on our case,” which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She added it will be a challenge to make sure the population in question is aware the portal is open again.
Anywhere from 250,000 to 450,000 people missed the deadline or encountered unresolvable problems on the portal, according to an estimate last month from New America, a left-leaning research organization in Washington.
Even those who used the portal by the deadline encountered a massive glitch that blocked payments.
A Government Accountability Office report released June 25 found that up to 450,000 low-income people who had signed up through the portal did not receive the checks for dependent children.
On June 30, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig testified to the Senate Finance Committee that roughly 365,000 people who signed up did not receive the checks for dependents.
In a statement on Friday, Mr. Rettig said the IRS had coordinated with thousands of community organizations and provided materials in more than two dozen languages.
“Given the extremely high demand for EIP assistance, we have continued to prioritize and increase resource allocations to eligible individuals, including those who may be waiting on some portion of their payment,” Mr. Rettig stated.
“To help with this, we are allocating additional IRS resources to ensure eligible recipients receive their full payments during this challenging time.”