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Seniors, Disabled Won’t Need to File to Get Recovery Checks

Posted on Apr. 2, 2020

Social Security beneficiaries who don’t otherwise have a filing requirement won’t have to file tax returns to receive their coronavirus recovery rebates, Treasury has announced.

“Social Security recipients who are not typically required to file a tax return need to take no action, and will receive their payment directly to their bank account,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an April 1 statement. 

The announcement comes just two days after the IRS said that taxpayers who typically don’t file tax returns would have to file a simplified return to access the relief payments promised under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (P.L. 116-136).

But according to Treasury’s new statement, the IRS will instead use information on forms SSA-1099 and RRB-1099 to generate the payments to Social Security recipients who didn’t file returns in 2018 or 2019.

The change comes after congressional Democrats put increasing pressure on Treasury to reevaluate its procedure for distributing the recovery rebates to senior citizens and the disabled.

“We are extremely displeased to see the IRS guidance recently notifying the public that Social Security and Supplemental Security beneficiaries who did not file tax returns in 2018 or 2019 must file a return in order to get the rebate,” a group of 32 House Democrats said in an April 1 letter to Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.

Senate Democrats, led by Finance Committee members Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, sent a similar letter to the administration the same day, urging Treasury to make direct payments to Social Security beneficiaries without the need to file.

Ways and Means Chair Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., previously sounded the alarm in a March 31 statement calling on Mnuchin and Social Security Administration Commissioner Andrew Saul to fix the problem. Neal noted that the shutdown of services often frequented by low-income taxpayers, veterans, the disabled, and senior citizens — such as volunteer income tax assistance and tax counseling for the elderly — would make the filing requirement more difficult to meet.

At least one Republican also criticized the previous guidance provided by the IRS. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said language in the CARES Act made clear that Social Security beneficiaries wouldn’t have to file to receive a refund. “IRS should follow the law that Congress passed,” he said. 

Wesley Elmore contributed to this article.

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