The Social Security Administration (SSA) has given the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the updated information required to begin delivering stimulus checks to some 30 million federal beneficiaries still awaiting payments, Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul announced on March 25.
To date, the IRS has delivered 127 million stimulus payments worth about $325 billion during the third round of relief based primarily on information included in tax returns filed in 2019 or 2020. Among those receiving payments have been some federal beneficiaries who file tax returns. However, many low-income beneficiaries — including recipients of Social Security retirement and disability benefits, as well as recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits administered by SSA — aren't required to file tax returns. As such, the IRS said it has been waiting for updated information from SSA on bank accounts and addresses of federal beneficiaries to ensure the stimulus payments reach eligible individuals.
.............
"We urge you to provide clear information on the IRS and other federal agency websites about when exactly these groups should expect their payments. Older Americans are counting on these payments to make ends meet. We urge you to prioritize these federal beneficiaries in both your payment distribution and communications efforts moving forward,” Bill Sweeney, AARP's senior vice president of government affairs, wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig on March 25. A similar letter from AARP went to Saul on the same day.
The updated information from SSA should help ensure that direct deposits go to correct bank accounts, and paper checks and debit cards go to correct mailing addresses. The updated information for 2021 should also reduce the number of payments sent to deceased individuals, which was a problem in the first two rounds of economic stimulus. Anyone who died in 2020 or earlier isn't eligible for the third stimulus payment.
https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/info-2021/third-stimulus-check-delivery-speed-urged.htmlSocial Security Recipients to Get Delayed Third Stimulus Checks After SSA Sends Data to IRS
Nearly 30 million people who receive Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits have been waiting to get a third stimulus check because the Social Security Administration failed to send critical information to the IRS. Fortunately, that wait should come to an end soon, now that the SSA has finally forwarded the necessary data to the tax agency.
It took a letter from four Congressmen to get the SSA to send the requested information, which they did the day after the letter was sent. However, according to the Congressmen, the necessary payment files arrived a month after the IRS requested them. That delay held up payments to millions of Americans.
The IRS has already sent approximately 127 million third-round stimulus payments worth about $325 billion over the past two weeks. More payments will be sent on a weekly basis going forward. So, hopefully, payments to the Social Security and SSI recipients who have been waiting can be sent in one of the next few batches.
https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/social-security/602504/social-security-recipients-to-get-delayed-third-stimulus-checks-after-ssa-sends-data-to-irsTrump Appointees Are Sabotaging Biden’s Stimulus Checks
On Wednesday, March 24, House Democrats Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ), Richard Neal (D-MA), John Larson (D-CT), and Danny Davis (D-IL), members of the Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter to Social Security Administration commissioner Andrew Saul, complete with an ultimatum. According to the letter, nearly 30 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income recipients, some of the country’s poorest and neediest people, were being prevented from receiving their $1,400 stimulus checks from the American Rescue Plan, because Saul was refusing to send the necessary payment files to the IRS.
Weeks after the American Rescue Plan had been signed into law, while many Americans had already received payments, the Social Security Administration’s inaction was standing in the way of millions of beneficiaries receiving desperately needed cash aid. After escalating pressure on Saul to no avail, the letter gave him 24 hours to remedy the holdup. A few hours later, the SSA announced that they’d be sending the information the next day.
his delay is just the latest in an array of extremely troubling decisions under the leadership of the Social Security Administration’s commissioner Saul, and his deputy David Black. The SSA manages benefits for the 61 million Americans who receive Social Security payments, along with the five million additional people who get disability benefits via the Supplemental Security Income program. The SSA also helps determine Medicare eligibility. It manages a trillion-dollar annual budget.
Commissioner Saul and Deputy Commissioner Black were appointed by President Trump, alongside Deputy Commissioner for Retirement and Disability Policy Mark Warshawsky, to self-fulfill the Republican promise about the failure of government, and destroy the departments they were tasked with managing. Warshawsky, a veteran of the American Enterprise Institute, was pegged as an early candidate to be fired by the Biden administration for his work undercutting the program; he retired from the post in late January.
https://prospect.org/politics/trump-appointees-sabotaging-bidens-stimulus-checks/
= new reply since forum marked as read
