The IRS is still stumbling along to get stimulus checks to millions of people who have not yet received them. This includes those who did not meet the “non-filers” deadline and people who filed 2019 paper returns after the IRS used their 2018 return to calculate the payment. Those still waiting also include the spouses of people who owe back child support. This is a mistake of the IRS’s own making and in an effort to correct this error, has also caused the families who are owed that child support to not receive their payments. This has been infuriating to an estimated 50,000 families across the country who could use that stimulus money to pay for groceries, rent, mortgage and all the things that the rest of us used the funds for.
Here’s the way the system is supposed to work: if you are married to someone who owes back child support and you file your income tax return jointly, any refund is split, with half going to the family owed child support, and the other half going to the spouse who does not owe back payments. There is even an IRS form to fill out, called The Injured Spouse Allocation, which is designed to not penalize a spouse whose partner owes child support.
In the case of the Economic Stimulus Payment, “injured spouses” were told to file these forms separately to make sure their share of the payment went to them. Unfortunately, the IRS erred in processing the forms filed by taxpayers, and their share of the stimulus check was “offset,” which means that it was withheld for their partner’s child support payments.
In August, the IRS admitted this was indeed what happened and said they would correct this problem by mid-September. Interestingly, the agency also said that injured spouses who had not filed an Injured Spouse Allocation form would be made whole as well, but did not commit to a date when that would happen.
Continued delays in payment processing now seems to be a system problem in that every time the IRS tries to process these payments, the offset automatically kicks in. They tell us that they are working on a systemic fix. Given that we are going on 7 months, it seems to us that someone should turn off the “system” just for a few days in order to process these payments, manually if need be. Currently, when an injured spouse is able to reach someone at the IRS, that person is unable to even manually process the claim.
The final insult is that not only are the “injured spouses” not getting relief, but neither are the families who are owed the back child support. This is the real tragedy in this system.
There are efforts at the Congressional level to address this in a more expeditious way, but with additional federal money currently stalled in Congress, the American people should at least be able to receive what has been promised to them since March. We’ve been in touch with Maine’s Congressional offices – especially the offices of Sen. King and Rep. Pingree – to express these concerns. We also feel it would be a kind and entirely appropriate gesture to offer the affected families interest earned on these funds that have been withheld.
Allison Hepler represents Arrowsic, Dresden, Georgetown, Phippsburg, Woolwich and part of Richmond in the Maine House. Jennifer Hicks is a resident of Woolwich.
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