Former IRS Commissioner Mark Everson explains how coronavirus relief checks will be delivered to Americans

Former IRS Commissioner & alliantgroup Vice Chairman Mark Everson joins Yahoo Finance's On The Move panel to discuss how the coronavirus relief checks will be sent out to Americans.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: A lot of hopes among investors about the checks and the support that the government is poised to provide to individual Americans. We're joined now by Mark Everson. He is former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and now he's vice chairman at Alliantgroup. He is joining us from Mississippi right now. Mark, thank you so much for joining us.

So as someone who served at a time when checks were being sent out to Americans in the first Bush administration, I believe-- or second Bush administration.

MARK EVERSON: Second.

JULIE HYMAN: Second Bush administration. Talk to me about the process here. What do people need to know when they are applying for these checks or awaiting these checks?

MARK EVERSON: Well, the IRS processes about 150 million individual tax returns every year, and they have information, banking information, on most of those people, and addresses on most of those people. What will happen here is they will make deposits for the vast majority of people, or they'll have to send some checks in other instances.

There will be some problems where individuals haven't filed their '19 return yet. So they'll go back and they'll use the 2018 information. Or, there could be problems where they don't have the proper information at all, but it is going to be a relatively small number of people. But still, you know, they add up into the hundreds of thousands then, maybe a million or two that they'll have some troubles with. So people will get the checks, or they'll get the payment or the check I think pretty quickly, Julie. I think that the service will be able to do this pretty promptly, except for that smaller group of taxpayers where the information is not readily available.

JULIE HYMAN: Adam, do you want to chime in with a question here? Sorry.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Yes. Does it work? Because you've got people who live in parts of the country who have an AGI, an Adjusted Gross Income, who might be considered middle to lower income based on where they live, and this is barely going to cover the rent.

MARK EVERSON: Well, you're onto something here-- that it's sort of a one-size-fits-all, and then it's adjusted upwards. If you exceed this the $75,000 threshold, then you're actually going to get less. So then it phases out entirely at some point.

So yes, it's a crude instrument, if you will. But my experience with the Bush tax cuts and the checks that went out then is, nobody sent it back because it was too small.

RICK NEWMAN: Hey, Mark. Rick Newman. So you kind of referred before to there will be some people who will fall through the cracks, and I'm just trying to think, are there things that people should be doing to assure they don't fall through the cracks. So for example, young workers who are just entering the workforce, they might be in their first full year of work and did not file a tax return in 2018 or 2019. How does the government reach them, or people who have had big changes in their income? Perhaps it went down and they might not qualify under the rules, but under their current income, they do qualify. To your mind, what are the things people should do to account for situations like that?

MARK EVERSON: This is where you get into the fact that the IRS, just like any other organization, is suffering from the coronavirus. And they are actually shedding some of their activities, their phone lines and some of the help they provide to practitioners. I think what folks have to do-- my counsel would be to file your 2019 return if you haven't already done that. That would be the first thing I would tell everybody to do. And then if they don't hear from the service or get a check, ultimately the service will indicate how to get in touch.

The one thing I would really caution people, though, is don't fall prey to any scam when somebody calls you and says, hey, this is the IRS, if you haven't gotten your check yet, please give me your banking information. The service won't be doing that, I can tell you.

One other thing. If it's possible, Julie I like to just sort of pivot a little bit if I can. It's very important. This is a very rich package of benefits that businesses are getting. And obviously Congress has stepped up and said, let's take care of everything we can to keep businesses going. I would want to highlight one thing, that at Alliantgroup we work with a lot of incentives. The main one we work with is the research and development tax credit. It's a very generous benefit, and it applies to businesses of all sizes, and across a range of industries based on activities they undertake. And all too often, businesses overlook it. So I think it's very important that taxpayers and businesses look beyond just the things they're seeing in the current legislative package, if you will.

JULIE HYMAN: Mark, I'm glad you brought up the business side of it and your current hat that you wear as working for a tax consultancy. Is there anything else that you're telling small businesses that they really need to know right now when it comes to, say, applying for Small Business Administration loans or any of the other part of the benefits package?

MARK EVERSON: They just need to be thorough, and don't jump to conclusions. Some of the provisions, Julie, if you take advantage of one, you're not going to get the other. And you'll also still have obligations. I mean, people have looked at the deferral. Remember, things that have been deferred, they will come due. If you have a quarterly payment or moneys that you owe on April 15, they've been deferred to July 15. They haven't been forgiven in terms of your basic tax obligation.

The other thing is, if you're an employer, you are able to defer your share of payroll taxes, but you owe the money that the employees gave you that you took out of their check during the first three months. That's an important distinction. You're not given a deferral on that. So you just proceed carefully. Check with your financial advisor. You know, we work at a number of these lanes and are putting out information. And people can look at our website site, Alliantgroup, and see where we can help.

JULIE HYMAN: A lot of news you can use in there, Mark. Thank you very much. Mark Everson is former IRS commissioner, and Alliantgroup vice chairman. Appreciate your time, sir.

MARK EVERSON: Thank you so much.