Tax Refunds Will Be Paid During Shutdown, White House Says

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget said tax refunds will still be paid out by the IRS, despite the ongoing partial government shutdown.

OMB deputy director Russ Vought told The Daily Caller during a Monday meeting that the White House would work quickly to make the process as “painless as possible” for taxpayers.

During a government shutdown, the IRS is usually relegated to having only one in eight employees on staff, according to The Wall Street Journal. Certain functions like criminal investigations will continue, but auditing and refunds have been known to stall in the past.

Hundreds of billions of dollars in refunds are at stake as Democrats and Republicans remain deadlocked over how to fund the federal government.

Last year the IRS paid out $12.6 billion by Feb. 2 of to over six million households. By Feb. 16 they had paid out $101.2 billion to almost 32 million households. And by March 30, the government had doled out $212 billion in refunds, according to WSJ.

One of the main issues between both parties continues to be funding for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall. Trump is seeking $5.6 billion to fund the project, while Democrats remain diametrically opposed to any physical barrier at at the southern border.