The effects of the pandemic are still being felt, and now that the election is almost over, some of the choices the Trump administration made during that time are being looked at more closely. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the COVID-19 stimulus checks that were sent out are one of these choices that is now being called into question.
The first thing that caused a stir was an order from the Treasury Department in April 2020 that President Trump’s name should be on Economic Impact Payments sent to Americans. It was the main thing that was done to help people deal with the effects of COVID.
Checks and letters from the Treasury Department are usually signed by a civil worker so that they are not political. This would be the first time in history that a president’s name would be on a government check. This worried people who work for the IRS because it could be seen as breaking the Hatch Act.
This Act is a “federal law passed in 1939” that limits the political activities of some federal employees and some state, D.C., and local government employees who work on national projects.
The law’s goals are to make sure that government programs are run without bias, to protect federal workers from being forced to do political work, and to make sure that workers are promoted based on their skills and not their political views.
The Truth About The IRS Stimulus Checks
In response to this worry, there were a lot of communications making sure that this move was legal and that it would not be seen as the IRS supporting President Trump’s campaign for the 2020 election.
Bloomberg got an email through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from an agency worker to IRS commissioner Charles Rettig and other agency workers. It sums up the agency’s worry: “Did Counsel push back on this? Someone brought up the worry about how this makes the IRS look.
A Wage & Investment commissioner named Kenneth Corbin wrote in an email to Deputy Commissioner Sunita Lough, “The one thing I want to document and get for us on the IRS side is a position from ethics officials that the IRS is not violating the HATCH act.” This email goes even further. I think we want this cover for everyone at the IRS.
In spite of the fact that the request did not break any laws, there was “no clear legal prohibition” against including the president’s name, which led to more confusion.
Due to the back and forth emails, the aid checks were late, which was a big problem because the country was getting worse and worse. Last-minute changes had to be made to the checks to add the president’s name and change the brand to fit the story. This meant that the deadline for sending the checks was very short.
Reporters from The Washington Post learned about what was going on and printed before it was even official that the IRS “is now racing to implement a programming change that two senior IRS officials said will probably lead to a delay in issuing the first batch of paper checks.” This made things even worse.
Even though the checks were sent out on time, the bad press had already done its damage, and the agency was inundated with demands and complaints. In an email that came after the story, another IRS worker from Rettig’s office wrote “Just so you know, people are calling tosay that checks are being held up because the president wants his name on them.”
A pointless scandal that made things even worse for Americans during a tough time, especially for those who were really struggling financially and felt lied to by the organization that was meant to help them.
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