The Internal Revenue Service is bringing in 3,500 telephone operators to deal with the flood of calls about economic impact payments from taxpayers waiting for their money from the IRS.
The $2 trillion CARES Act that Congress passed in March included provisions to give individual taxpayers $1,200 each, $2,400 for couples, plus an extra $500 for each of their dependent children to help them get through the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus pandemic. While 140 million of the 150 million payments have been sent oiut, according to figures from the IRS on Monday, numerous problems quickly emerged.
Shelly is a Managing Director in BMO Capital Markets where she leads a global team responsible for the first line of defense including Trade Floor Supervision, Business Unit Compliance, AML Operational Risk & Resilience, Crisis Management, Algorithm & Automation Risk, and ESG Risk. The mandate includes preventing loss due to failure in process, people and systems and ensuring the execution of trading and investment banking businesses in compliance with applicable regulations.
In addition, she is focused on integrating data with machine learning and AI to enhance the way we work and make decisions and to focus on real versus perceived risk. She leverages similar technology applied in a different way to design process and organizational efficiencies, influencing across the organization.
Previously, Shelly was the COO for BMO's US Trading business. She has over 25 years of experience across industries. Prior to joining BMO, she was a global COO at Barclays. She has a unique blend of experience in sell-side M&A, corporate infrastructure, risk and in leading large scale regulatory and business transformations.
Shelly earned an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MS from Johns Hopkins University, and a BS from Penn State University. She holds FINRA Series 7 and 63 licenses. She has regulated and non-profit board experience and currently sits on the board of BMO Europe PLC and BMO Harris Investment Co.
She enjoys hiking, fishing, singing, playing guitar and sports.
Deb Franklin is the co-CEO of PEAK6 InsurTech, the insurance operations and technology subsidiary of PEAK6. PEAK6 uses technology to find a better way of doing things. The company’s first tech-based solution was developed in 1997 to optimize options trading and, over the past two decades, the same formula has been used across a range of industries, asset classes and business stages to consistently deliver superior results. Today, PEAK6 seeks transformational opportunities to provide capital and strategic support to entrepreneurs and forward-thinking businesses, helping to unlock potential and activate what is into what ought to be.
Eric Rosenbloom, CLTC, ChFC®, is Vice President, Wealth Services at Alera Group Wealth Services. For over 30 years, he has counseled individuals, families and businesses about long-term care and how to create and implement customized financial strategies to help enhance and protect their financial security.
The IRS relied on direct deposit information from taxpayers’ 2018 and 2019 tax returns, when it was available. But many bank accounts were temporary ones set up by tax prep chains for doing refund transfers, and there was no record of the taxpayer’s own bank account. Taxpayers were asked to enter their own direct deposit information online in such cases, and many are still awaiting their checks. The paper checks only recently started being sent out, and in some cases the IRS didn’t have the most up-to-date addresses for taxpayers. In some cases, payments were mistakenly sent to deceased taxpayers and people living abroad.
Much of the IRS workforce has been working remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, although some have been called back to work to deal with the voluminous unopened paper correspondence that has piled up in trailers outside the IRS offices. Now it is starting to bring back employees to answer the phones and answer questions from anxious taxpayers about the status of their payments, although presumably these employees could work remotely.
The IRS warned Monday that telephone assistance and other services will nevertheless remain limited. The agency expects to bring back additional telephone helpers as state and local advisories allow.
In any case, answers for most of the common questions related to the economic impact payments can be found online on IRS.gov. The IRS regularly posts new and updated responses to the most frequently asked questions about economic impact payments here and in the FAQ page for its Get My Payment tool. Taxpayers who want to know about the status of their economic impact payment can check the Get My Payment page regularly. The information is updated as the IRS continues to process the rest of the payments for delivery.
Answers for most questions about the stimulus payments are also available on the automated message for people who call the phone number provided in the letter they receive about their economic impact payments, known as Notice 1444, a letter signed by President Trump informing them their payment has arrived (whether it has or not). Those who need more assistance at the end of the message will have the option of talking to a live representative.
