- Americans have said on social media that they're receiving stimulus money for deceased relatives.
- Stimulus money was sent to anyone who filed a 2019 or 2018 tax return, and if one was filed before a person died, there's a possibility that he or she were still sent the stimulus check.
- The IRS's website does not appear to have guidelines regarding money given to someone who has died, but this isn't the first time it has happened - 70,000 deceased people received stimulus checks in 2010.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
As Americans started receiving their stimulus checks this week some people realized that their deceased relatives were also getting funds.
Numerous Americans, including Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, spoke about friends and relatives receiving money that was accidentally sent to them as part of the federal government's $2.2 trillion bailout package, which was launched amid of the economic fallout of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
"Ok this is insane, but just the tip of the iceberg," Massie tweeted, while sharing a photo of a text with a friend who said: "Dad got his stimulus check of $1,200. He died in 2018. Does he have time to spend it online?"
The money was likely handed out to people who died because the payments are based on a person's 2018 and 2019 tax returns. If the person filed a tax return before they died, there's a possibility that he or she would receive their stimulus money, likely through a check in mail or a direct deposit like most other Americans.
While the majority of money given to deceased people will simply be returned, there are cases where someone could benefit from a dead relative's stimulus deposit. If a person has died, but their account is still in probate, the eventual beneficiary of the account could access the funds. Or, if a deceased person jointly filed with a partner, that surviving partner could also still cash the check.
The IRS's website does not appear to have guidelines regarding how to handle money given to someone who has died, but the concept isn't new.
When former President Barack Obama issued a stimulus package in 2008, about 71,688 dead people were sent $250 checks, according to a 2010 report from The Wall Street Journal. About 41,000 checks were returned, the Journal reported.
Malcolm Sparrow, a professor of public management at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government who worked on a panel to oversee the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act under Obama, told USA Today that payments to deceased people continue to happen because federal records are not kept up to date.
"So that's one potential explanation: that it's just out of date or inaccurate death records being transferred from one agency to another," he told USA Today. "The other potential explanation is a lot more worrying: that other people are exploiting the identities of the dead to file false claims."
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