Tax Office Manager Toleafoa Vaaimamao Poufa answered questions raised by members of the House, on why many Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) checks were not released in the first batch of tax refund checks, two weeks ago.
The announcement from Treasury, about the issuance of the first batch, said that a total of $953,615 in Earned Income Tax Checks would be included in the first batch, however, many who were supposed to receive their checks, did not get them the day of the release on March 8th.
The Tax Office Manager reported that there was a technical glitch with the EITC’s, which prevented all of the checks that were to be released that day from being dispersed.
He said, the EITC payments were programmed into their Tax Office system, but the work was not completed and this resulted in some of the checks not being issued.
Nevertheless, he said, they were able to release all of the EITC checks later.
Toleafoa said, there were no problems with EITC checks in the second batch of refund checks released yesterday,
He also revealed that it’s the wish of the Treasurer to issue 1,000 tax refund checks per week.
