IRS chief expects new child payments to start this summer
Associated PressWASHINGTON — It’s a strain, but the head of the IRS said Tuesday he expects to meet the July 1 deadline in the new pandemic relief law for starting a groundbreaking tax program aimed at reducing child poverty. In testimony at a Senate hearing, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said it will cost nearly $400 million and require the hiring of 300 to 500 people to get the new monthly payment system and electronic portal in place for the child tax credit. The new child tax credit “is not targeted to pandemic relief, and risks the loss of billions of taxpayer dollars in fraudulent and improper payments,” Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, wrote in letters to Biden administration officials. In addition, he told the senators, the new electronic portal for processing the child tax payments “will be as user-friendly as possible.” Rettig at the hearing also acknowledged that the national gap between federal taxes owed and actually collected is more than double, at about $1 trillion annually, than official government estimates have indicated.