White House directs IRS to pay tax refunds during shutdown

last updated 8 January 2019

Lawyers for the Trump administration decided on Monday that the Internal Revenue Service will be able to issue tax refunds, despite the government shutdown.

During earlier shutdowns, including one last year, the IRS said it would not send out any refunds. A senior official with the Office of Management and Budget told The Washington Post that it was decided processing tax refunds is similar to paying Social Security benefits, which is allowed during a government shutdown.

Several Democrats say this not only goes against precedent but also the Antideficiency Act, which states that federal agencies cannot spend money that has not been authorized by Congress. "What we're seeing now is an effort by the administration to ignore legal views, to basically put aside the law and limit the political impact of what's going on," Sam Berger, who worked in the general counsel's office at the OMB during the Obama administration, told the Post.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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