$1,200 US Stimulus Mistakenly Send to Foreign Workers Living Overseas

The $1,200 Stimulus checks were mistakenly sent to thousands of foreign workers who had visited the U.S for temporary work visas during the first round of stimulus payments.

Many of the recipients of the wrong addressed checks are spending the money in their nations. While some of them are trying to amend their returns, thinking that the mistakenly received stimulus checks would affect their green card application, visa status, or ability to go back to the U.S.

According to NPR, one tax preparation form told them that it has clients from 129 countries who mistakenly addressed it to receive stimulus checks. Some of these countries are Canada, India, China, Brazil, Nigeria, and South Korea, Argentina, Colombia, Ghana, Germany, Japan, Nepal, Mongolia, Nigeria. Pakistan, Russia, Peru, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

The mistake happened due to many foreign workers filing incorrect tax returns unintentionally or on purpose that made the foreigners appear to be U.S residents, as per government officials and tax experts, as per IB Times.

The amount that was sent to improper recipients who live overseas is challenging to identify. However, according to Sprintax, the company that prepares the U.S tax for nonresidents, about 400 amended returns were made for people mistakenly filed as U.S residency last year. This year, 5,000 or almost 5% of the total federal tax returns were processed to fix residency.

There will be an estimated $43 million stimulus check-in error if it is only 5% of more than 700,000 student and seasonal workers for last year's record with F-1 and J-1 visas.

The error of sending a $1,200 stimulus check to non-U.S citizens is the latest in a series of mishaps for the COVID-19 relief efforts in America. The set of mishaps includes sending nearly $1.4 billion relief package checks to dead Americans.

As Congress is still in debates about another pandemic relief packages, they are also considering a second round of stimulus payments that will exclude the deceased. However, the new bill does not have to do with the problem of $1,200 checks mistakenly sent to foreign workers.

The majority of the recipients are college students from South and Central America, or Eastern Europe who traveled to the U.S for a seasonal low-wage occupation. NPR reported that one of the receivers of the mistakenly addressed stimulus was a 24-year-old citizen of the Dominican Republic who worked at a Cape Cod grocery store last summer. This spring season, the person received a $1,2000 stimulus check with the sign of President Donald J. Trump.

NPR stated that the U.S government acknowledges that some stimulus checks were improperly sent to foreign workers. The Treasury Department is said to explore possible options to prevent the mishaps from happening again.

1040 is the form commonly used by individual U.S taxpayers, according to Clayton Cartwright, Georgia attorney. However, most foreign workers mistakenly file for it instead of the 1040-NR form (NR stands for nonresident).

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