US sent $1.4 billion in aid payments to dead people, finds government watchdog

NEW YORK: The Trump administration delivered more than a million stimulus payments worth about $1.4 billion to dead people in a rush to pump money into the economy this year, the government accountability office (GAO) said on Thursday.
More than 130 million payments were sent to taxpayers as part of the $2.4 trillion coronavirus relief package enacted in March. The errors occurred mainly because of a lag in reporting data on who is deceased. “The IRS didn’t use death records to prevent payments to deceased individuals for the first three batches of payments...,” the GAO report says. The IRS asked in May for the money back from the deceased taxpayers’ survivors. Some experts say the government may not have legal authority to require that it be returned.