Pandemic consolation prize: View from Indian country

Isaac Neiss succeeded in claiming his Covid-19 Economic Impact Payment, but it meant jumping through some hoops. His story is the first episode in our exposé on the hurdles for others like him in Indian country. (Photo by Talli Nauman)

PART I
RAPID CITY – Ronald “Isaac” Neiss figured he would not be eligible for a $1,200 individual stimulus check under the U.S. government’s emergency pandemic relief program. However, the 20-year-old local Sicangu Lakota man decided it would be worth a try to apply, and he scored a welcome reward.
‘I don’t know how long we are going to be in quarantine, so I thought I might need the money,” he told the Native Sun News Today. He said he would put it into savings to use for necessities.
Neiss received the check for the full amount from the U.S. Treasury Department on April 23. Yet with the department putting out the word of “last chance” and “time is running out,” many of his friends and relatives failed to take advantage of deadlines for obtaining the one-time economic boost.
Their reasons are manifold. Challenges nationwide are well-documented. Hurdles specific to Indian country are less-well attended.
The good news is: If you missed the most recent May 13 deadline for applying to get your Covid-19 stimulus check, you can still qualify and receive as much as $1,200 for each adult and $500 for each child in your family.
The funds come from the U.S. Congress’ $2-trillion March authorization of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, which also included outlays for tribal and other governments, small business assistance, and unemployment security.
The Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, which oversees tax return filers’ annual contributions and refunds for federal budget management purposes, is in charge of the personal stimulus payouts.
Officially known as Economic Impact Payments, these consolation prizes aim to compensate individuals for hardships endured during the public health crisis. They are estimated to number in the range of some 280 million checks altogether.
Neiss’ payment arrived one day after an IRS target date for distribution, while millions of expectant recipients across the United States were getting the jitters over seeing no deposits or incorrect amounts in their mailboxes and electronic bank accounts.
Delays and underpayments were not uncommon due to what The Washington Post termed “glitches” in the filing and collection methods used by both the bureaucracy and private tax consulting firms. After all, they were sorting their way through a maze of accounting steps as novel as the pandemic coronavirus itself.
On May 8, having sent out more than $200 billion in the stimulus program’s first four weeks, and with more than half of eligible recipients still waiting for their money, the IRS announced a five-day window for filing to receive payment via direct deposit.
By that date, one of the system’s big bugaboos had been tamed: The accessibility was enhanced at the previously impractical “Get My Payment” electronic page on the IRS website, and the agency prompted: “Use Get My Payment by noon Wednesday, May 13, for a chance to get a quicker delivery.”
It urged, “For many taxpayers, the last chance to obtain a direct deposit of their Economic Impact Payment rather than receive a paper check is coming soon. Time is running out for a chance to get these payments several weeks earlier through direct deposit.”
It added that after May 13, “The IRS will begin preparing millions of files to send to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service for paper checks that will begin arriving through late May and into June.” So even if you can’t get it fast, you can still get it.
If your tax return shows you earn income under $75,000 a year as an individual filer or under $150,000 as a joint filer with your spouse, roughly speaking, you should automatically receive the money for every family member claimed on your tax statement.
Some people don’t have to file tax statements because of their age, income bracket, source of earnings, and other things. If you don’t file a tax return but are enrolled in a federal military veterans, railroad retiree, or social security payroll system, then you should receive your coronavirus relief deposit automatically anyway.
However, even if you are enrolled in such a system, you still have to make a special effort to claim the $500 per dependent.
If you are not enrolled and haven’t filed an annual tax statement, then you must take action on your own to claim the stipend for yourself and dependents.
That is what Neiss did. He credits his elders for giving him a leg-up in meeting the challenge. “My mom was an accountant at the Denver Tech Center for years,” he said, so she coached him to seek assistance with filing a tax form.
However, as has been the experience of many, the application process required jumping through some hoops.
In 2019 Neiss was working his first paid job ever, doing in-home childcare. It was only part-time, and the earnings were far below the government’s minimum requirement for filing a tax statement, which is usually about $12,000.
Nonetheless, he contracted the services of a private tax consultant to prepare and submit a statement to the IRS for the express purpose of qualifying for the stimulus payment.
In the process he learned that he was required to turn in a statement anyway, because his work was a South Dakota state-paid position classified as self-employment.
But as it turned out, “stimulus money was something the tax company didn’t know about,” he said. Then the consulting fee ended up being more than one-fifth, or 20 percent, of the stimulus check value.
Despite the struggle and the steep charge, the Economic Impact Payment was literally relief, when it came in the mail. Neiss had only made about $150 every two weeks providing childcare assistance. Now he had a better-paying position, but it required being out in the public and was increasingly scary as the pandemic spread.
He was considering leaving it, noting, “I don’t want to take any chances with my family.”
He had decided he “needed to get another job,” in December, before the outbreak of the pandemic, so he had gone to work at Walmart.
There he quickly became classified as an “essential” employee, meaning, in this case, one whose services are required to continue operations during an emergency “in order for households to have access to food,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.
As for shouldering this risky business, his father said, “Me and his mom worry about it. But I’m proud of him.”
Neiss is on the store floor with strangers every shift, exposed to any who might be contagious. He recalls an evening when he had to stand in for a colleague who usually stocked the toilet paper shelves.
Being as how toilet paper is a top item on pandemic panic shopping lists, he could imagine himself being rushed by customers anxious to claim their quota before the competition did. He was “intimidated.”
He described filling the empty racks, alone in the aisle without so much as a security guard in sight to make sure “I had an actual chance of survival.”
The employees have received bonus pay for their bravery. In conversation around the proverbial water cooler, they refer to it not as hazard pay, but as “combat pay,” he said.
“I’m planning to hang in there as long as I can, then take advantage of the check.”