The Treasury Department accidentally sent $1,200 stimulus payments to dead people and now it's aiming to get the money back, according to Accounting Today.

Like many aspects of the CARES Act, the implementation of the $1,200 stimulus payment has been met with unforeseen challenges. Among them has been stimulus payments sent to dead people by mistake, due to the fact that the government uses tax filing information as its primary means of determining payment eligibility; in the absence of 2019 records, it used 2018 records instead. This, however, has meant that those who filed taxes for 2018 yet died between then and now were nonetheless still counted as alive by the system.

The government is now saying that it wants this money back, and it will soon be releasing guidance instructing relatives of the deceased on what to do. It is unknown right now whether Treasury will pursue legal action against those who fail to return funds, although it confirmed that it will not do so in the event that some people received more money than they were due because of recent income changes.