VA, Treasury Department Payments Update

| April 22, 2020

Ex sends.

VA Partners with Treasury Department to Deliver Economic Impact Payments to Veterans and Survivors

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs(VA) announced today it is working directly with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and U.S. Treasury Department to ensure delivery of ‘Economic Impact Payments’ to Veterans and survivors who receive Compensation and Pension (C&P) benefit payments from VA without additional paperwork or IRS filings.

The ‘Economic Impact Payments,’ authorized by the Treasury Department under the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, will be issued automatically to recipients of non-taxable VA benefits who did not file annual income tax returns for 2018 or 2019. VA and the IRS have been collaborating since the passage of the CARES Act to ensure Veterans receive their EIP.

“Many have expressed concern that Veterans and their beneficiaries would be overlooked during the distribution of Economic Impact Payments from the CARES Act simply because they don’t file an annual tax return,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “This collaboration will ensure our Veterans receive CARES Act payments without any additional action or paperwork required.”

Some good news, for a change. Read the rest of the article here: VA.gov

Thanks, Ex.

Category: Administrative, Guest Link, Veterans' Affairs Department

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OWB

Good news for whom? Certainly not the American taxpayer.

Not understanding why anyone whose retirement, annuity, survivor benefits, or whatever is NOT impacted by this virus is getting additional pay. Sure, there are many who have lost their income because the business that pays them is shut down. But for all whose income stream has not changed, why the additional $$?

This just makes no sense.

Roh-Dog

I don’t think it’s additional, just a streamline for anyone that hasn’t filed income tax and is receiving DoD Eagle Chits

Hondo

Actually, the payment in question is indeed simply an extra bunch of cash – courtesy of Uncle Sam – paid to anyone who qualifies. Currently, pretty much anyone (1) doesn’t make “too much” money, and (2) is in the US legally (citizen or permanent resident alien status) qualifies. (Who should qualify is a different topic entirely, as OWB alluded to above.)

It is neither taxable income nor an advance on this years’ tax refund. Bluntly: it’s a distribution of cash effectively funded purely through additional Federal borrowing (I’m pretty sure the Federal government wasn’t predicted to have a budget surplus this year even before China “gifted” the world the 2019 Wuhan coronavirus). Here’s FAQ 20 from the IRS’s web site page concerning the payment:

Q20. Is the Payment taxable as 2020 income?

A20.No, the Payment is not income and you will not owe tax on your Payment. It will not reduce your refund or increase the amount you owe when you file your 2020 tax return next year.

A Payment also will not affect your income for purposes of determining eligibility for federal government assistance or benefit programs.

A different FAQ answer indicates the payment also won’t be garnished for debts to the US other than for past-due child support.

The full FAQ page can be found here:

https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/economic-impact-payment-information-center

Roh-Dog

I appreciate the reorientation, but my point is that this program is just to reach the people outside of the mechanisms of distro from the Treasury/Illegal Revenue dis-Service, which we are in agreement.
This ‘free money’ is going to everyone under the threshold because our government is a drunk toddler with a checkbook. Misallocation of currency? Yeah.
But personally, I wouldn’t categorize the payments as ‘additional’, they are lawful, FWIW.
…semantics…

Hondo

Agreed that the article Ex-PS2 quoted could be much better worded. You are correct that this is simply an outreach program to some of those who might otherwise fall “through the cracks”.

However, claiming it’s not “additional” because it’s a “lawful payment” is invalid. This payment is simply Federal largess, to be paid for by additional Federal borrowing. In other words: as usual, the Federal government is prepared to screw future taxpayers to curry favor today. It does that through a host of programs that are not financially sustainable over the long term; this is merely a one-time example of such.

It is clearly “additional” in the sense that it’s a one-time cash payment, over and above wages/pensions/other income, that no one would have otherwise received had Congress not passed and the POTUS signed the law authorizing same.

So yes: it’s an “additional” payment, courtesy of Uncle Sam, to damn near everyone in the country – and it’s one that doesn’t even get taxed as income. The fact that it was duly authorized by Federal law is irrelevant.

Roh-Dog

For the record let it be shown that I’m not a fan of borrowing (read:stealing) the purchasing power of yet-unborn tax donkeys. ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right’ BUT considering the financial engineering occurring at the top of the pyramid, this stimulus program may achieve some “‘good’”, ie cushion for folks at the lower rungs to build a deeper pantry or spread it into the cracks-turned-chasms of Main Street.
Again, not a fan but this crap sandwich has mayo…?

Hondo

No argument that some form of relief for those who’ve lost employment is beneficial (though unemployment compensation rules have already been relaxed due to the emergency). And I also understand the beneficial effect on the economy of the additional spending – “pump priming”, as it was often called in the past.

My disagreement is the same as OWB’s: people who still are employed and/or otherwise unaffected (e.g., those who’ve retired and/or were otherwise not working and receiving income from other sources, such as VA compensation and/or pensions) are simply getting a windfall. Yes, their spending the $$$ will further stimulate the economy. But to me that seems a bit misplaced and excessive.

While I agree philosophically with the “everyone qualifies” aspect, that raises the cost dramatically. Here, it might have been better for the US taxpayer if the payments were restricted to those whose employment was lost due to the emergency.

Yeah, I got the EIP a few days ago. And I’ll probably go ahead and spend it (I can p!ss away money just as easily as the Federal government). But I could have lived without it, and I hate the fact that future generations of taxpayers will be paying interest on the Federal borrowing involved to fund it.

timactual

” I also understand the beneficial effect on the economy of the additional spending – “pump priming” ”

Overrated and overused. This “pump-priming” “Stimulus” has been going on for decades now. Last year the pump was primed/stimulated by close to $1 Trillion dollars. Like any other stimulus it loses any stimulating effect if it is continuous; the addict builds a tolerance to the drug; it is no longer a transient but a steady-state condition.

timactual

Not borrowing–printing. The left hand, the Treasury, issues debt. The right hand, the Federal Reserve, “buys” the debt by creating the money. The books balance, we have nothing to fear but fear itself, and all is right in this, the best of all possible worlds.

Who would we borrow $4 Trillion (so far) dollars from, anyway? We are not the only economy to be hurt.

Welcome to Weimar on the Potomac! “Experts” at work!

Comm Center Rat

Printing money is so 20th century! Last November, Jerome Powell confirmed the Federal Reserve is looking into developing a digital currency in the US.

Roh-Dog

And better yet, buying assets almost directly from banks and issuing built-equity on a Fed issued ‘asset card’.
The market ‘values’ your house at a figure more than you paid? You get credit issued to you that you can use.
Social credit scores are coming folks!
It ain’t your money.
Maybe it never was.

26Limabeans

My income stream has not suffered.
Hell, even my CD’s are not affected.

I don’t need a handout but I do understand that
the economy needs me to spend money nomatter where
it comes from. So I will do my part and buy something
made in USA. My dad would have called it “found money”.

timactual

Spend it quickly, before the inflationary portion of the “stimulus” takes effect.

Roh-Dog

I like everything you’re saying.
Spend it wisely my friends, just because our uncle Insolvent Sam is drunk with an unlimited Amex doesn’t mean we can’t act responsiblier.

Roh-Dog

Silver is getable at $3.50/oz above spot, G/S ratio is around 113 with a historic average around 20ish.
With all the printing going on cash will be hammered after price depreciation.
If you are strategic about managing the dips this could be one of the best opportunities in a lifetime to secure real assets.
Good luck out there folks!

Comm Center Rat

As a Soldier in the Free Shit Army I stand ready for my stimulus payment.

Show me the money!!

Make it rain Mr. Trump.

Green Thumb

chooee lee

I’m in for anything free. I think it is another attempt to buy votes. That said where is my Obama money? Excuse me, my stimulas money. It better show up soon or I will vote Green Party as a lesson those a-holes in congress.

PS
I still have’nt recieved my Obama Phone.

Hack Stone

The State Of Maryland is making food stamps for every resident, regardless of need or income. Wondering who will be picking up the tab for that? Just imagine how much taxes are going to go up in California, they are throwing money around like a drunk Marine the last night of liberty before the ship leaves Subic Bay. They could always cut back on some non-essential expenditures, but their problem is that they know how to turn on the spigot, but can’t figure out how to turn it off.

26Limabeans

I remember when food stamps were actual stamps, not cash.
And the food was actual food, not cash.
I’m old so I must be imagining such things.

Friend

You’re correct…had friend on the dole..in the day stamps were like the Disneyland coupon book. Hand the clerk a $20 for a pack of gum and get money change. Then they changed it and you got back rumpled old food stamp tickets and coin change as change….
NOW the loser sells hers for liquor at a (DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT FOOD STAMP RULES) market. SO, sitting in jail for food stamp fraud she’ll apply again the second she’s out the door…

Roh-Dog

Hole-lee f*******k!
Every resident?!
See you in the breadline, Comrade.

timactual

“The State Of Maryland is making food stamps for every resident, regardless of need or income.”

Why haven’t I been informed?! Now the only problem is getting to the damned store to use them.

“Just imagine how much taxes are going to go up in California,” t

That’s what is so nice (for the politiians) about the Federal gov’t. You can just print the money and, voila!, no tax increases! And people have short attention spans so they do not remember when the ground beef that now costs $7.99/lb. used to be $1.99/lb. Or the (much more important) Hershey bar that now costs $1.50 used to cost $0.05.

David

That $.05 Hershey bar dates from when minimum wage was $1.00 an hour and gas was a quarter… a quarter hour’s work.

5th/77th FA

I say again, add these funds to the bill that we should send to the Communist Government of China for causing this whole mess. Maybe that is da Trumpster’s overall plan. Run the tab up to the total that we owe the Communists and then tell them to go piss up a rope. For way yonder too long we have financed the assault on our economy by the Communist Chinese Government by exporting our jobs/factories to them, and buying their cheap knock offs.

OWB

So I should look at this as a “refund” of taxes I’ve already paid and just ignore the simple fact that those who don’t pay taxes at all, don’t work, and still have their same income reaching them every month are also being rewarded?

Well, OK then. Consider my attitude adjusted.

Hold the mayo.

(Wonder if there will be enough to cover the first quarter taxes due in 2020.)

Roh-Dog

“Wonder if there will be enough to cover the first quarter taxes due in 2020”
BLUF I’m not a CFP: I’m worried that inflation may erode future purchasing power of my greenbacks.
There is no modern historical precedent for this type of intervention and the ancient ones don’t look pretty.
Talk to a professional and develop a plan, please!

OWB

Your concern is appreciated. That said, I can’t afford any more professionals in my life! Got plenty now, and most of them just do what I tell them, until I need for them to tell me what else I need to know. Which they do.

We be fine here. And, no, I do not anticipate my “refund” will cover what I will owe for the first quarter. But it might.

To address your concern – yes, inflation is almost guaranteed to eat into your future spending power. It always does. Depending upon your age, perhaps even seriously. What I find quite laughable is all those investments we were encouraged to make decades ago that were supposed to be taxed at a lower rate when we used them because we would be, you know, old, and therefore in a lower tax bracket – well, that was also a lie. I am NOT in a lower tax bracket. I am required to take distribution, whether I want to or not. At least right now it is a smaller amount to be taxed again. That will also change.

timactual

” all those investments we were encouraged to make decades ago”

The ones that just lost a large chunk of their value or pay 0.0% interest?

OWB

I was specifically thinking of Roth IRA’s and other deferred comp investments.

11B-Mailclerk

There is precedent, adjusted for currency values at the time.

For WW2, we spent -oodles- of money that just came out of thin air. FDR totally gamed the money system. Darn near all the silver we had wound up as wire for electromagnets in one of the U235 processing lines at Manhattan Project. Copper was needed for ammo, so they used silver.

No law allowed it. They just pulled it out of the vaults and made wire.

The Revolution was financed with funny money. “Not worth a Continental(dollar)” took a while to fix.

War winners can get away with much. Combined bombing of 3/4 of the world industry to rubble hid a multitude of financial cheating.

If China gets froggy, and “war” is recognized, we would likely void all those notes.

We have done that before, in War. Winners can get away with it.

China can’t survive that. We can. It is a -huge- lever if things get too hot, and Trump is a master of leverage.

And the economy is already trashed from the dem-panic. Huge upside to doing it. Don’t trow us in dat dere briar patch Brer ChiCom.

Hondo

Actually, silver is a better conductor of electricity than copper. That’s likely why it was used in Manhattan Project electromagnetic separation systems – less loss (due to lower wiring resistance) means a stronger magnetic field and better isotope separation.

Copper being needed for ammo was why we had steel pennies in 1943, and why silver was added to the nickel coin in place of copper from partway through 1942 to 1945. (Those “war nickels” today have a metal value substantially above 5 cents.)

11B-Mailclerk

The amount of wire needed was so large it would have crippled ammunition production.

And the silver was just sitting there.

Brilliant, really.

Hondo

I did some further digging, and it turns out you were right – at least for the critical year 1943. The original Manhattan project request for silver was for 6,000 tons for the electromagnetic separation effort at the Y-12 plant (this would have replaced about 6,600 tons of copper – silver is a better electrical conductor). Later expansion of that effort was required and used another roughly 9,000 tons of silver. 1943 turned out to be “crunch year” for copper use; that was the year we used steel for pennies, which saved around 3,550 tons of copper. That was also the year the Manhattan project’s first allocation of silver was used, so yeah – it was probably used because copper was needed elsewhere and waiting until copper was available was unacceptable. Even omitting the copper used in other coinage (10% of dimes/quarters/and half-dollars was copper, with the other 90% silver), we’d have been way short in 1943. 1944-1945 were different stories. Those years, the copper shortage had eased; we went back to minting copper-based pennies, mainly using scavenged brass. The mintage of pennies alone those two years used 11,780+ tons of copper – which is fairly close to the additional amount of copper that would have been required if the expansion work eventually done for the Y-12 calutrons had been done with copper windings vice silver. Staying with steel pennies in 1944 and 1945 would have freed up enough copper to do that. However, there would likely have been a time penalty in changing over which would have delayed the project. Any delay was doubtless unacceptable; thus silver was used for the expansion as well. FWIW: the roughly 15,000 tons of silver used by the Manhattan Project hardly used up nearly all the US Treasury’s stockpile of silver. During the war, an additional 10,000+ tons of silver was used to mint coins alone. And per this source on Google books, the US Treasury holdings of silver at the end of 1943 was 3,254,000,000 ounces (presumably Troy ounces and inclusive of the silver held on loan to the Manhattan Project –… Read more »

timactual

Some of us are past the planning stage and into the memoir stage.

As far as precedent, all the ones I can think of suggest that you trade in your wallet for a wheelbarrow.

Roh-Dog

Amen.
I’ve never been a religious man, and I like to think that we live in an ordered universe, yet every instinct that I’ve had, before and during this crisis has been correct, early but overall correct.
The beans are in, potatoes chitted, quail reared… I’ve never been driven like this about anything before.
The Good Book says that He spoke to Noah, and Noah listened.
The story ends well for the faithful.

Comm Center Rat

I live back in the woods, you see
A woman and the kids, and the dogs and me
I got a shotgun rifle and a 4-wheel drive
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

~ Bocephus

BTW I haven’t seen any black helicopters flying over my compound in the last five days.

Roh-Dog

And know I’ve gotta listen…
Thanks.

Ex-PH2

Black helicopters?

Geezo Pete, I get Sikorskis flying over my house on a recurring basis. Sometimes I get photos of them, sometimes I don’t. Depends on the weather and time of day. They look like fat fish. Glad to see my tax dollars at work.

Steve 1371

I think of it as a dividend for all the years of hard work I have put in. For all the taxes I have paid for just about everything that can and will be taxed. The $600.00 check I received from W Bush came just in time to replace my water heater that suddenly sprung a leak. I plan to use this money for payment of tax,title and registration of a late model pickup trk to replace my 20 yr old Crown Vic. I paid less for my first new pickup in 1977 than the down pmt and taxes on a two year old one now with 30,000 miles on it. It isn’t because the 2018 model is worth any more than the 1977 one.

Hondo

You’re comparing apples and oranges, amigo.

A dollar in 1977 bought the same amount as $4.26 does today. To compare real values, you have to convert both to same-year dollars.

Now, ask yourself this: would you really want to go back and live in 1977 – in the middle of Jimmuh the Peanut Farmer’s stagflation – than today? Count me as among those who’ll pass on going back.

Green Thumb

I thought the clothing, tunes and associated “items” ere way cooler….

OWB

Not sure about that, Hondo. I had a very good time during the 70’s and 80’s. Of course, I generally DO have a good time. It does seem that it was whole lot easier to do then. Plus we were pretty free to come and go as we pleased.

Experimented driving a Wankle engine. Danced the night away. Drank my share of spirits. And other stuff. Learned a lot of stuff, some of it useful.

Relive it? Maybe not, but there sure are some fond memories, and good friends from that era.

Steve 1371

Ah…. I forgot about the peanut farmer part. Right you are Mr. Hondo. I wouldn’t wish repeating that on anyone. Sky high interest rates and no work. Thats when I went from being a carpenter to a truck driver. I hauled bulk milk for the next four years. I had great fun on that job.

timactual

” I paid less for my first new pickup in 1977 than…”

That’s why it is such a good thing that “experts” run the Federal Reserve, SEC, etc. instead of the politicians.

Sarcasm? You be the judge.

Sapper3307

My new pup (Loki from wrights Mountain Goldens) just cracked the screen on this laptop. So their go’s my spending in the USA option.
Do we even make laptops in the U.S?