The millions of Social Security recipients who don’t have to file federal tax returns should receive coronavirus stimulus checks authomatically, say dozens of Democratic senators.
NBC News reports that the call for automatic payments comes in response to IRS guidelines issued Monday saying that Americans who weren’t required to file tax returns for 2018 or ’19 will have to do so to get a check under terms of the $2 trillion coronavirus package signed into law by President Trump.
Qualifying for payment would require filling out “a simple tax return,” the IRS said.
The senators, led by Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul expressing their views, NBC says.
About 64 million Americans received Social Security benefits last year and an estimated 15 million of them currently don’t have to file annual tax returns.
The Democratic senators “called on the IRS to make the payments automatic without requiring seniors to file a return,” says NBC, adding that an IRS spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Along with Hassan and Brown, senators signing the letter include Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Minority Whip Dick Durbin and current and former presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.