President Donald Trump’s name will appear on every stimulus check sent by the government, The Washington Post reports.
The Treasury Department will print “President Donald J. Trump” on the memo line of every check. Trump had pushed to sign all the checks but only career Treasury officials are legally allowed to sign the checks.
Though the department expects to dole out a majority of the payments electronically, 80 million people whose direct deposit information is not on file will receive a mailed check unless they give the IRS their banking information.
The checks are expected to be printed at a rate of 5 million per week, meaning that some people will not get their payments until September.
Every individual earning under $75,000 will receive a $1,200 check, couples earning up to $150,000 will receive $2,400, and parents will receive $500 for each child 17 and under. The payments are phased out for people who earn above the threshold.
Move may delay checks:
The decision is expected to delay the first round of checks, IRS officials warned.
"Any last minute request like this will create a downstream snarl that will result in a delay," Chad Hooper, the president of the IRS's Professional Managers Association, told The Post.
A Treasury Department official denied that the decision will cause a delay.
"Economic Impact Payment checks are scheduled to go out on time and exactly as planned—there is absolutely no delay whatsoever," the official said. "In fact, we expect the first checks to be in the mail early next week which is well in advance of when the first checks went out in 2008 and well in advance of initial estimates."
“Abuse of resources”:
Hooper told the outlet that the move was “an abuse of government resources.”
"In this time of need for additional resources, anything that takes our focus from getting those checks out the door and hampers the equitable, fair administration of the tax code is not something we can support," he said.
"Taxes are supposed to be nonpolitical, and it's that simple," agreed former IRS official Nina Olson. “It’s absolutely unprecedented.”
