KHJ News sent questions to Deputy Treasury Keith Gebauer regarding the distribution of stimulus checks on Saturday.
We asked for an explanation of checks being sent to the wrong mailboxes.
Gebauer’s answer: “First, I would like to thank the general public and all involved with EIP distribution for their patience and understanding. Given the sheer number of checks and the size of the distribution, I think some errors and mistakes are bound to happen despite our best efforts. Some of these errors are simply human errors and others are incorrect information on the tax filing forms.”
“In either case, if a mailbox owner discovers EIP checks (or any ASG check) that doesn’t belong to you, to please turn it into the Post Office or to the Tax Office, whichever is more convenient for you. We have received reports on social media posts and while most seem genuinely trying to let the general public be aware, please return the checks to the Post Office or the Tax Office.
“The Tax Office will make every effort to contact the correct recipient and make any corrections to the taxpayers information on record. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and we will make every effort to resolve as quickly as possible.”
KHJ News asked the Deputy Treasurer if he expected to see the long lines witnessed on Saturday.
His response: “This was the first time the Department of Treasury has ever undertaken such a program. Every distribution option had pros and cons and the decision to conduct the mass distribution was made after careful consideration of a number of factors. In the end we felt this was the fairest way to disburse the first round of EIP checks.
“We worked closely with the relevant stakeholders to manage the process as best we could. These stakeholders outside of Treasury include DPS, local banks and the Post Office to ensure capacity to handle a disbursement of this kind. Our distribution schedule was in conjunction with TBAS to ensure the bank had enough cash on hand to cover the $23.7 million in EIP checks and $1.9 million in tax refund checks.
“If TBAS was not able to import sufficient cash, the Department of Treasury would not have released the EIP checks. Due to safety concerns, we generally do not make this information public. We also informed the Chamber of Commerce around the same time we informed the local media outlets as soon as it was confirmed the availability of cash on the island. We anticipated long lines associated with the EIP checks and tax refund checks and would expect them to continue for the better part of this week.
“We would expect businesses of all kinds to see significant increases in traffic and sales. Some of our informal inquiries to businesses seems to have confirmed our projections. We are entering into the graduation season, although modified due to the state of emergency declaration, we would guess the general public would prefer to have their EIP checks as soon as it was available.
We also asked Gebauer about direct deposits and what needs to happen before this service is possible.
His response: “The Tax Office and the Department of Treasury have had some improvements to our OneSolution system (thanks to ASEDA) and the most immediate improvement this year has been the rate of releasing Tax Refunds (we are in the final stages processing tax refund batch # 11 that will take us from March 5 up to April 3rd or thereabouts).
“We have been testing direct deposits but do not anticipate being able to implement before the second round of EIP disbursements as such they will be mailed out similar to the first round. Lastly, Direct Deposit requires individual taxpayer banking information that is not readily available on their current 2019 or 2018 filings and would require the Tax Office to have nearly all taxpayers to come in and provide their banking information. The Department of Treasury hopes to have this capability next year but still have quite a bit of work to make this a reality as this Direct Deposit process is quite complicated.
KHJ News asked if there will be any changes in the distribution method for the next round of stimulus checks.
Gebauer response: There will be a second round but the total number of checks will be significantly less than the first round. The first round of EIP checks (approx. 9300) covered approx. 79% of eligible EIP recipients ($23.7 million). The second round of EIP checks (approx. 2400) is expected to cover approx. 17% of EIP eligible recipients (disbursing approx. $4.8 million). The remaining approximate 4% will be resolved by the extended 2019 tax filing deadline of July 15, 2020.
If a taxpayer doesn’t receive an EIP check and believes they are entitled to one to please see us at the Tax Office. Our goal is to distribute EIP checks to all eligible EIP recipients.
“As a Department, we have learned a lot through this process, regarding our capabilities, shortcomings, needs and ability to overcome some adversity. We acknowledge some mistakes and errors have occurred but we will apply those lessons as we move forward and plan on incorporating into our operation.
“As I have stated previously, I couldn’t be more proud of the efforts and hard work of the Tax Office, Disbursing/Revenue, IT, AP and Finance teams along with others at the EOB (Special thanks to DAS) for working together to accomplish this initial release. Our overriding goal as the Department of Treasury was to make every effort to accurately and in full compliance with our implementation plan process to distribute all EIP checks to eligible recipients within the Territory as quickly as possible.
“In the event that we may make mistakes, we apologize and ask for the general public and any affected recipients to please contact us at the Tax Office.
If you have any questions please send an email to stimulus@tr.as.gov or call us at the Tax Office.
Gebauer concluded, “On behalf of the Treasurer, we wish to express our appreciation to TBAS management, ANZ management, DPS and Commissioner Le’i and special thanks to Postmaster Suani and her staff for all their efforts to assist in this one of a kind release of the EIP checks.”
