Today, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand urged the Trump administration to modify guidelines that impede access to direct cash payments for millions of low income Americans. On Monday, the IRS announced that people that receive federal benefits and don’t need to file taxes to receive direct cash payments under the CARES Act — like Social Security retirement, disabled, and survivors insurance beneficiaries, railroad retirement beneficiaries, and veterans — have only until 12 PM Wednesday — approximately 30 hours from the announcement — to register child dependents who are eligible for additional $500 payments. Those unable to apply by the deadline will have to wait until next year for additional payments. In a letter, Senator Gillibrand criticized the IRS’s short-sighted decision to inhibit millions of Americans, including veterans and social security recipients from accessing their full recovery rebates, and pushed for an extension of at least one month to apply.
“The IRS’ recently announced deadline for registering child dependents impedes the ability of millions of vulnerable Americans, including veterans and social security recipients, to access critical relief funds,” said Senator Gillibrand. “During this time of crisis, the government should be doing everything possible to make it easier for people to receive direct relief, but this short-sighted decision makes it harder. I am urging the Trump administration to modify these misguided guidelines — failure to do so would be irresponsible and negligent.”
Full text of the letter can be found here and below.
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April 21, 2020
The Honorable Charles P. Rettig
Commissioner
Internal Revenue Service
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20220
Dear Mr. Rettig,
I write today with an urgent request in order to ensure that deserving Americans can get the Recovery Rebates that were part of the CARES Act. I am sure you can agree that the lowest income folks are the ones most in need during this time of health and economic crisis.
The deadline for Americans to fill out a “non-filer” form on the IRS website in order to receive funds for their qualifying children must be completed by noon on Wednesday, April 22, 2020. That is about 30 hours from your initial notification about the deadline to receive these funds. There has been no campaign to inform citizens of this need and many have no idea that this requirement even exists. Therefore, it is critical that you extend this deadline by at least a month. Failure to extend this deadline is willfully irresponsible, negligent and ensures that a substantial amount of individuals deserving of the qualifying child funds won’t receive them and would have to wait until next year.
Thank you for your attention to this matter and I look forward to your immediate action.
Sincerely,