Some taxpayers who’ve recently moved or changed bank accounts and filed 2018 but not 2019 tax returns are getting an exasperating message when they try to use the IRS’s Get My Payment tool.
The app’s “payment status not available” message “is the No. 1 issue for people who filed in 2018 but not ’19,” said enrolled agent Kathy R. Hettick of Hettick Accounting & Tax LLC. The message indicates that, for one reason or another, the Get My Payment system hasn’t received or processed data from a return, another app, or another agency.
The Get My Payment tool was launched April 15 as “a quick and easy way to find the status of [a taxpayer’s stimulus] payment and, where possible, provide their bank account information if we don’t already have it,” said IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in a statement at the time. The IRS was tasked by Congress in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (P.L. 116-136) with helping disburse $2.2 trillion in emergency coronavirus relief spending. The tax agency is using the tool and a similar nonfilers app to encourage people to get their payments electronically.
But the inability of the Get My Payment system to correct outdated or mistaken addresses and bank information is leaving many taxpayers anxious and uncertain, said Hettick, who is co-chair of the IRS Advisory Council. Her clients understand antiquated, overloaded IRS systems sometimes send payments to dead people, she said, “but it’s frustrating for people who are due that money and can’t get it.”
The IRS explains on its Get My Payment webpage and accompanying FAQ that to protect against fraud, the tool is not designed to allow financial information to be changed. The tool also can’t update bank account information after a relief payment has been scheduled, the webpage said.
The IRS directed questions for this article to the Get My Payment FAQ page.
The tax agency announced the Get My Payment service would be unavailable from April 23 through April 25 because of planned maintenance.
Integration vs. Security
There could be good explanations why the IRS hasn’t implemented the capability to update bank and mailing information, said former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
On the one hand, integrating a 21st century online user interface with a mid-20th century IT infrastructure and database that wasn’t built to support any of those things is a tall order, Koskinen said.
Jami Gibson of Drake Software, a professional tax preparation program provider, also noted that IRS systems would need to reliably integrate information from the taxpayers with the appropriate agencies, such as Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Services.
On the other hand, Koskinen said, as fast as the IRS is expected to get the relief funds out, it also has to protect against fraud. For individuals’ authentication of eligibility, access to Veteran Affairs and Social Security Administration databases will be critical, he said.
Yet Hettick said the government already made at least one choice ripe for relief payment manipulation, if not fraud. By calculating economic impact payments against either 2018 or 2019 tax returns, the IRS is leaving taxpayers who haven’t already filed with an opportunity to choose which return the tax agency uses to obtain the higher payment, she said.
Paper or Plastic
Koskinen said he thinks security issues are the main impediment to the IRS’s offering bank account updating on the Get My Payment tool or something similar.
“I think they clearly will do it,” Koskinen said, “but in a way that makes sure you’re doing it to your account, and not somebody else pretending to be you. . . . If it was easy to do securely, it would be in everybody’s interest to do it.”
Hettick said she and her clients would welcome the added functionality, with appropriate security safeguards, and preferably with clearer instructions about how to find out about their payment status.
By contrast, Gibson said, “I think it’s a horrible idea, in that what the IRS has on record is what they should continue to use, to prevent as much fraud as possible,” rather than allowing bank and address information possibly to be changed or stolen by criminals.
“My opinion overall was that the IRS should’ve relied on paper checks only” to distribute coronavirus relief payments, Gibson said.