“This filing requirement would place a significant burden on retired seniors and individuals who experience disabilities, especially given the current unavailability of tax filing assistance from Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and Tax Counseling for the Elderly programs during the COVID-19 crisis,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul.
As the Washington Post notes, over 15 million Americans on Social Security don’t file a yearly tax return because their income is so low. During the 2008 recession, 3.5 million Social Security recipients did not receive a stimulus check from the government because they didn’t file the required tax return to get it. Now, in the midst of a crisis in which people are being told to stay home, there is worry that even more people won’t get a check if they need help filing their return. “There is no need for Treasury to require those millions of Social Security recipients to file,” Chye-Ching Huang, a tax expert told the Post. “We just hope it’s a misunderstanding and they clear it up quickly. It’s a really simple fix.” Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, was slightly more blunt. “Despite language Congress passed in #COVID-19 relief bill to ensure Social Security beneficiaries would NOT have to file taxes to receive direct relief, IRS issued guidance saying seniors DO have to file taxes. That’s ridiculous. IRS should follow the law that Congress passed,” he tweeted.
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Florida governor pulls his head out of the sand, announces stay-at-home order
After weeks of resisting calls for a state-wide order to stay home, during which he refused to close beaches to coronavirus-spreading spring breakers and blamed New Yorkers for supposedly bringing the disease the the state, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed an order Wednesday directing residents to do just that, making him one of the last governors in the country to do so. Previously, the Republican had been loathe to break with President Donald Trump, who spent months downplaying COVID-19 and as recently as last week was talking about getting people back to everyday life and work by Easter, arguing that killing the economy would be worse than killing millions of Americans.
But after being briefed by campaign officials and allies re: the fact that a spike in deaths could “be even more politically damaging in November than the current economic downturn,” Trump extended nationwide social distancing guidelines through April 30, which apparently gave DeSantis the courage to prevent needless deaths in his state, where the number of people testing positive surged by more than 1,000 on Tuesday to hit almost 7,000, the New York Times reported. “When the president did the 30-day extension, to me, that was, ‘People aren’t just going to go back to work,’” DeSantis said at a news conference in Tallahassee. “That’s a national pause button.”
Prior to Wednesday, DeSantis had spent most of his time carping about New Yorkers bringing the virus to the state, while strangely having no issue with the spring breakers flocking to the area. At a press conference last week, he blasted residents of the Empire State—already under a stay-at-home order themselves—for the rise in cases in his state. “You’re having people be reckless and cause problems for other communities,” DeSantis said. “Tens of thousands have defied [state directives in New York] and so we’re ending up in a situation where we’re having to pick up some of those pieces.” He later issued an executive order mandating a 14-day self-quarantine or isolation period for travelers coming to Florida from the New York tristate area and Louisiana.