Letter to Steven Mnuchin, Sec. of the Treasury, Charles Rettig, Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and Andrew Saul, Commissioner of the Social Security Administration - Kennedy, Carper, Gianforte, Bustos lead bipartisan inquiry: Why are the deceased receiving coronavirus stimulus checks?

Letter

Dear Secretary Mnuchin, Commissioner Rettig, and Commissioner Saul:

We write to raise questions and express concerns with reports that deceased individuals are
receiving COVID-19 related economic impact payments. In addition, we write to encourage your
departments to take immediate action to prevent these improper CARES Act payments. While it
is essential that our constituents receive stimulus payments quickly, these improper payments to
deceased individuals represent significant government waste and a burden to constituents who
mistakenly accept the payments.

As you know, the CARES Act provided for a $1,200 one-time payment per adult and a $500
payment per child for those making up to $75,000 in annual income. Of note, the Department of
the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have estimated that there will be 171
million rebate payments under the CARES Act. According to Treasury, as of April 29, 130
million Americans have received payments from the IRS. Sadly--as has been widely reported in
the news, and as many of our constituents have informed us--some of those payments have been
made to people who are deceased.

Unfortunately, this is not a new issue. In fiscal year 2019, the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) estimated that improper payments throughout the federal government totaled about $175
billion. Since 2003, when agencies were first directed to begin reporting improper payments,
cumulative improper payment estimates across government have totaled almost $1.7 trillion. In
many instances, agencies have made improper payments to the deceased. According to an Office
of Personnel Management Inspector General report, agencies made a total of $601 million in improper payments from 2006 to 2010 to federal retirees later found to have already died2
. In total, the Administration, in its most recent budget request, estimates that payments to deceased
individuals cost taxpayers over $800 million per year. 3

That is why we introduced the Stopping Improper Payments to Deceased People Act, which
would grant federal agencies access to the full set of the Social Security Administration (SSA's)
death records, including state-reported death data. As you know, SSA maintains the most
complete federal database of individuals who are reported to have died. However, only a small
number of federal agencies have access to this official list. To date, those without access include
Treasury's Do Not Pay working system, the government's centralized no-cost data analytics tool,
which helps federal agencies detect and prevent improper payments.

Given the many reported cases of improper CARES Act economic impact payments to deceased
individuals, we encourage your agencies to take immediate action to prevent these improper
payments. The guidance issued by the IRS yesterday is a welcome first step and we thank you
for taking that action however, additional questions remain about the steps needed to address this
issue going forward. With that in mind, we request the answers to the following questions:

1. Are there situations where Treasury and the IRS would determine CARES Act economic
impact payments to deceased individuals as eligible, proper payments that would not be
considered improper payments under the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019
(P.L. 116-117)? If so, describe the reasons and criteria that the IRS uses to support any
such determinations.
2. How many of the 130 million payments to Americans were to deceased individuals? How
much did CARES ACT economic impact improper payments cost the federal government
overall?
3. How many of these improper payments does the Treasury Department (Treasury)
attribute to errors in the federal databases of deceased individuals, and which databases
did Treasury consult? How many can be attributed to errors in Treasury's procedures?
4. Will Treasury and the IRS take steps to recover these funds? If yes, what are these steps?
How could Treasury utilize payee databases and the Do Not Pay Business Center's
expertise in recovering improper payments?
5. What steps are Treasury and the IRS taking to protect and support taxpayers who
unknowingly and faultlessly spent improper payments?
6. What steps are Treasury and the IRS taking to prevent future improper payments of
CARES Act funds to deceased individuals?
7. Do Treasury and IRS utilize the (a) Death Master File, (b) Full Death File, or (c) any
other death database(s) to preview eligibility before sending out the CARES Act
economic impact payments?
8. What steps is SSA taking to make timely updates to the full set of death records it
maintains? Does the Treasury Department, including the Internal Revenue Service, have
appropriate and timely access to SSA's full set of death records?
9. What actions, if any, should the federal government be taking with regard to statereported death data to ensure that it is reported and shared with the agencies in a timely
manner?
10. Has Treasury determined that CARES Act payments are susceptible to significant
improper payments? If so, does the IRS plan to estimate the amount of total improper
payments associated with these CARES Act payments in accordance with the Payment
Integrity Information Act?
11. What steps, if any, did IRS take to make sure improper payments were not made to other
potentially ineligible recipients?

While we appreciate that the nature of this pandemic favors speedy delivery of payments, many
of our constituents now must deal with the stress of what to do with checks sent to their deceased
loved ones. We look forward to seeing your response to these questions as well as the steps your
agencies are taking to prevent improper CARES Act payments to deceased individuals.

Sincerely,