SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The white envelope from the Internal Revenue Service addressed to Benjamin Fenkell came in the mail on Monday. Benjamin's father, Tim Fenkell, said he wasn't sure what letter was at first.
The Sacramento man and his wife opened it. Inside, they found a letter confirming a $1,200 economic impact payment would be direct deposited into their son's account soon.
The husband and wife broke down in tears. Benjamin died in October 2018 at the age of 41.
"We both cried, because we miss him so much," Tim said.
Stimulus payments worth $15.8 billion have been distributed to more than 9 million Californians as of April 17, but some of those funds are getting sent to the dead.
The mistake by the federal government is opening up wounds of grief for Tim, who said he doesn't understand how it happened. It wasn't like the government did not already know of Benjamin's passing.
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On the letters, right next to Benjamin's name — and other deceased people who are mistakenly expected to receive stimulus money — are the letters "DECD." It's an abbreviation for deceased.
Benjamin's bank account has been closed for more than year, so Tim is assuming the deposit will bounce back to the IRS.
"It's an emotional thing, but it's also wrong," Fenkell said. "With everything that's going on in the world, I know [Ben] would have been outraged."
Those letters also appears on a paper check meant for Barbara Stubb's late mother. She's hesitant to cash it, even though her name appears on the check as her mother's trustee.
"I'm just feeling bad about it being here, but I don't know what to do about it," Stubbs said.
The IRS doesn't quite know either. The agency, which began issuing coronavirus stimulus checks weeks ago, is urging people to hold on to the payments and await further guidance.
More than 89 million taxpayers received nearly $160 billion of economic impact payments in the program's first three weeks. It's unclear how many of those recipients were deceased.
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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the Wall Street Journal this week that the IRS will be reviewing its databases and that payments sent to the deceased need to be returned by their heirs.
It's a task easier said than done.
"The whole phone process, I don't even want to get into it with the IRS," Stubbs said about the the IRS' website, which tells visitors on its economic impact payment information page to not call the agency.
It's an added layer of stress for Fenkell and Stubbs who are now waiting for the deposits and checks to void themselves. They say this just highlights another federal government fumble.
And they say they're now carrying the guilt of holding these funds, knowing so many others are alive and still struggling.
"It's like, the left doesn't know what the right foot's doing," Fenkell said. "There's a lot of people that really need that money."
Follow the conversation on Facebook with Van Tieu.
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