‘It could have helped so much more back then’
Hundreds of Connecticut residents still awaiting first stimulus check
WASHINGTON — Melanie Klucznik, 23, has been waiting since April for her $1,200 stimulus check. She was let go from her job at an events production company this spring and has been stringing together waitress jobs ever since.
“It would be nice to have that impact payment because I have been struggling every single month since the pandemic started,” said Klucznik, who lives in Mansfield.
Klucznik is not alone.
Hearst Connecticut Media found that Connecticut Congressional offices are assisting at least 298 people who are still waiting for stimulus payments, according to data shared by each office. That’s just the people who have called or emailed their member of Congress asking for help.
Eight months ago, Congress decided to award most Americans a $1,200 direct payment to help them weather the pandemic, business closures and an economic recession. The IRS has made approximately 160 million economic impact payments, and millions of people received checks within weeks of the legislation passing.
Congress is now planning to send out a second round of smaller stimulus checks to many people. But it appears it may be months yet before Klucznik and thousands like her receive their economic impact payment, a signature element of Congress’s spring coronavirus relief package.
The Internal Revenue Service has until Dec. 31 to pay the last economic impact payments. The agency ceased working on outstanding economic impact payment cases on Dec. 10, according to House Ways and Means Committee members. The IRS in mid-December the IRS shifts all of its operations to start preparing for the next tax season.
Unless the IRS changes the process due to the second round of stimulus, people who do not get their economic impact payment
“The IRS has not completely recovered. … the IRS is not completely exempt from the challenges of the year of the pandemic.” Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
by the end of the year must claim it on their 2020 taxes for a rebate — that means it could be well into 2021 before they get their rebate, especially if they do not pay much in taxes or any at all.
“What impact would the impact payment have at the end of the pandemic?” a frustrated Klucznik asked. “It could have helped so much more back then.”
The IRS is still avidly working to distribute economic impact payments through the end of the year, despite short staffing and others delays caused by the pandemic, an official told Hearst Connecticut Media. A spokesman for the agency did not have an estimate for how many people across the country are eligible for an economic impact payment due to the pandemic, but have not received it yet.
In April, Congress made economic impact payments available to U.S. citizens and residents with Social Security numbers who make less than $75,000 as an individual or $150,000 in married and filing a joint tax return. People with income greater than these thresholds received payments less than $1,200. The payment also included $500 for each dependent child.
The IRS mainly used individuals 2018 and 2019 tax returns to assess eligibility. American citizens who filed their taxes with undocumented immigrant family member were not eligible, the Marshall Project reported.
The IRS distributed the funds to Americans by check, direct deposit and on debit cards.
“There were snafus. Some of them were technical, some of which were interpretation,” said Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and former U.S. Treasury and Congressional Budget Office leader. “But I still praise the IRS for getting as many payments out to eligible people as quickly as they did. That was no small job and in the past it’s never gone that quickly.”
As of Aug. 28, 1.7 million Connecticut residents had received their economic impact payments, according to the most recent data available from the IRS.
In September, the IRS sent letters out to nearly 9 million low-income Americans who don’t typically file for taxes — including 89,458 people in Connecticut — advising them to get a stimulus check by submitting their information online to the IRS.
The office of U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2, has been getting an average of three new IRS cases a day in December, said Patrick Cassidy, Courtney’s communications director.
“Many cases we’ve handled are due to constituents not receiving their economic impact payment at all, although there have also been numerous instances in which an economic impact payment was received but it was for a lesser amount due to, for example, system issues affecting the IRS and the Treasury,” said Maria McElwain, communications director for U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
Many people received their stimulus check, but not the $500 per dependent child they were owed, other sources said.
In a Facebook group called Stimulus Check 2020 , individuals post almost daily saying they are still waiting for their check and looking for help.
Frederick Ware, 95, of Manchester, has spent hours reaching out to the IRS for his economic impact payment. He appealed to the office of U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1, whose case workers have been advocating on his behalf.
A World War II veteran and retired production coordinator for Parachute Pioneer Company, Ware’s income was a little more than $25,000 in 2019, he said.
He mailed a paper tax return and a $207 check to the IRS on Feb. 4, 2020, he said. Then, he heard nothing from the IRS about his taxes or his stimulus check until September. Ware said in September an IRS representative called him and told him they had not received his 2019 tax return. But IRS records showed the agency had cashed his $207 check.
The representative told Ware they’d looked at his 2018 tax return and determined he was not eligible for the economic impact payment. Ware said his 2018 return had a mistake in it, but he’d corrected it and IRS records did not reflect the change.
“It seems like the IRS has problems with their accounting records,” said Ware, who wants to give the $1,200 to his grandchildren. “I have been disappointed with the IRS and they need to make many changes in order to efficiently serve the taxpayers.”
Like Ware, Klucznik is another tax filer who has not received her check. She said she’s filed a tax return each of the past four years with the help of her father who is an accountant. She filed her 2019 taxes via TurboTax in January, she said.
She’s still waiting on an approximately $500 2019 tax rebate and her $1200 stimulus check she said. Her estimated income is about $15,000 this year.
She’s never heard anything from the IRS about her situation although Larson’s office has contacted them on her behalf.
“I’ve put in a lot of research,” she said. “I can’t come up with any reason for why it hasn’t come in yet.”
Meanwhile, Klucznik’s boyfriend, an Australian citizen in the U.S. on a green card, working for an American company and studying at the University of Connecticut, received his economic impact payment in April, Klucznik said.
In May, the IRS set up a hotline that individuals could call with questions about their economic impact payment. That hotline was shut down Nov. 30.
There are many reasons some individuals may not have received a payment. Many low-income individuals are not required to pay taxes so they had to take extra steps to get the payment, delaying their receipt of the aid. Some people had complicated filing situations because they were the victims of identity theft. Others never saw the money because it was taken by their bank to pay overdue child support or liens.
IRS staff had to work remotely at the start of the pandemic and when they returned in June, they were swamped by mail. That caused immense delays for people who filed their 2019 taxes by mail, Holtzblatt said, effecting both economic impact payments and tax refunds.
“As of the beginning of December, I think commissioner had said they still had a backlog of 1 million unopened pieces of mail,” Holzblatt. “The IRS has not completely recovered. … the IRS is not completely exempt from the challenges of the year of the pandemic.”
Congressional offices and their case workers have also been a key resource for some frustrated constituents looking for answers about their economic impact payments and tax returns. Collectively, Connecticut congressional offices have fielded thousands of calls and emails from constituents about the payments and returns and helped hundreds of people receive their benefits, data shared by the offices shows.
“Our phones were just ringing off the hook constantly,” said Patrick Malone, communications director for U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4.
Like other offices, the staff of U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5, contacted the IRS on behalf of constituents to determine if they were eligible for the payment and help them resolve any issues preventing them from receiving it, said De’Marcus Finnell, Hayes’s communications director. They also connected lowincome residents to tax clinics who would help them file a tax return.