A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Internal Revenue Service to stop withholding $1,200 coronavirus stimulus checks from people incarcerated in state or federal prisons.
According to a Thursday report in the New York Post, those inmates who are otherwise eligible to receive the stimulus checks under the CARES Act may receive them.
In April, the Internal Revenue Service distributed tens of thousands of stimulus checks totaling approximately $1 million to incarcerated taxpayers. Following the April release, the IRS revised the guidelines for the program, and insisted instead that incarcerated taxpayers did not qualify for the stimulus and should return the funds.
Following the announcement, a group of prisoners filed a class-action lawsuit in order to get the funds they felt they deserved. Yaman Salahi, partner at the law firm Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, represented the prisoners in the suit.
In the Wednesday decision, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said that President Donald Trump’s administration move to block prisoners from receiving the stimulus funds “solely on the basis of their incarcerated status” is “arbitrary and capricious.” – READ MORE
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