Despite Gov’t Shutdown, Tax Refunds Will Be Paid

While the U.S. government shutdown continues, a Trump official has promised that tax refunds will go out on schedule.

“Tax refunds will go out,” the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, told reporters on Monday (January 7), according to Bloomberg.

With past shutdowns the IRS would accept tax returns but delay refunds until a shutdown was over, but Vought said the administration is fixing that issue.

That news means there isn’t as much incentive for lawmakers to end the shutdown. Senator Doug Jones (D-Alabama) said he believes the refund decision is simply a way for Republicans to get support for the president’s wall on the Mexican border.

“It’s a band-aid to try to make people feel better about the fact that the government is not functioning,” he said.

But while tax refunds might be taken care of, the shutdown is having an impact in other ways, particularly for government workers. As a result, JPMorgan Chase has waived all fees on checking accounts, including overdraft charges, for customers who no longer receive a government check directly deposited into their account with the bank. It also said it will help government workers who miss a payment on a car, credit card or mortgage payment. “Our goal is to try as best we can to protect customers from negative consequences for missing a payment, such as late fees or reporting a late payment to a credit bureau,” Patricia Wexler, a spokeswoman for the bank, said. “We’re working one on one with customers to try to get them to where they would have been, absent the shutdown.”

In addition, Marcus, the online lending unit of Goldman Sachs, said it could provide loan payment deferrals, while Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Capital One, SunTrust and Bank of America all said they plan on working with impacted customers.