Presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has written to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman asking him to fix problems her constituents have reported with receiving the wrong amount on their tax rebates.
Computer glitches and misunderstandings seem to be the main culprits. "I have been informed of reports where taxpayers in New York have received rebates in inaccurate amounts and in one instance, an individual's account was credited with too large a rebate," wrote Clinton.
"Allegedly a 'computer glitch' may have resulted in thousands of these inaccurate deposits," she added. "Other complaints involve taxpayers who may have missed out on rebates they were entitled to due to their misunderstanding of the formula used to determine the rebate. In one reported case, a taxpayer was not aware that he was eligible for a larger tax rebate for his dependent children given that he was ineligible for the regular child tax credit under the Tax Code."
Clinton called on the IRS to take "immediate steps" to identify taxpayers who have received inaccurate rebate amounts and take "proactive measures to reach out to those taxpayers who may not have fully taken advantage of the benefits they were entitled to."
"Congress enacted these rebate checks to help our working families cope with the increased costs of living like gasoline and food costs, and it is incumbent on the IRS to ensure that taxpayers receive the amounts that they deserve," she added.
The Internal Revenue Service said on its Web site that it plans to mail out approximately 350,000 additional economic stimulus payments starting in early July after discovering that some tax returns were improperly filed and did not capture the information needed to generate the $300 in qualifying child payments (see
In at least one case, the IRS has reportedly declined to award the extra $300 for a dependent 17-year-old child. The IRS requires a child to be born after Dec. 31, 1990, in order to qualify for the extra payment.
