The Internal Revenue Service in January mistakenly sent letters to over 100,000 people incorrectly informing them that they were ineligible for stimulus checks given for coronavirus relief, The Washington Post reports.
"It's very disheartening," National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins told the Post in an interview published on Friday. "I know that the IRS has its struggles, and we are all trying to be patient because of the pandemic. But at the same time, these are things that just shouldn't be happening."
Collins wrote in a blog post that "more than 109,000 taxpayers recently received a letter (designated by the IRS as a 'Notice CP21C') informing them the IRS was offsetting their Economic Impact Payment (EIP)."
However, "The letters were wrong," according to Collins, and may have been sent by mistake. The IRS may have accidentally reissued letters that were sent in response to the stimulus checks that were authorized by Congress during the Great Recession, not the checks that were approved more recently in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Collins notes in her blog post: "The IRS's more than 109,000 CP21C letters informed the recipient, 'We applied a credit to your 2007 [that is not a typographical error!] tax account due to new legislation. We used (offset) all or part of your economic stimulus payment to pay your federal tax as the law allows … As a result, you don't owe us any money, nor are you due a refund.'"
She concludes, "I recognize the IRS faces many challenges in administering the two EIP programs. At the same time, I recognize that many taxpayers are facing even greater challenges as the pandemic continues to adversely affect us all. As the pandemic continues to negatively impact taxpayer services with no immediate relief in sight, I strongly encourage the IRS to continue to provide relief to vulnerable individuals to the maximum extent possible."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.