IRS wants funds sent to inmates returned

Coronavirus relief payments were sent to inmates, and legislation doesn't exclude them. It's not clear how IRS can get back the cash.

By

National News

June 24, 2020 - 9:41 AM

Photo by Nomin Ujiyediin / Kansas News Service / kcur.org

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of dollars in coronavirus relief payments have been sent to people behind bars across the United States, and now the IRS is asking state officials to help claw back the cash that the federal tax agency says was mistakenly sent.

The legislation authorizing the payments during the pandemic doesn’t specifically exclude jail or prison inmates, and the IRS has refused to say exactly what legal authority it has to retrieve the money. On its website, it points to the unrelated Social Security Act, which bars incarcerated people from receiving some types of old-age and survivor insurance benefit payments.

“I can’t give you the legal basis. All I can tell you is this is the language the Treasury and ourselves have been using,” IRS spokesman Eric Smith said. “It’s just the same list as in the Social Security Act.”

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