Americans who received a stimulus check from the federal government also are getting something else in the mail: a letter from President Donald Trump.

A one-page letter from Trump started arriving over the weekend in the mailboxes of millions of Americans who received stimulus payments of up to $1,200 under a new law designed to help the economy recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

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A former taxpayer advocate at the Internal Revenue Service called the letter “unbelievable” and said it makes the agency “look like it is the handmaiden of one administration and one party.”

“This will harm the IRS and its ability to appear nonpolitical and nonpartisan,” said Nina Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights. “If I were there, I would be strongly advocating against this.”

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The economic recovery law that provided for the stimulus payments requires that a written notice be sent via mail to the last known address of any taxpayer who received one of the stimulus checks. The law says the letter must be sent no later than 15 days after the money has been distributed and must include the payment method, the amount of the payment and an IRS phone number to report any failure to receive such a payment.

The law doesn’t dictate who should send the letter. Asked who decided that the letter would come from Trump, the Treasury Department referred a reporter to Trump's remarks at a news conference on Friday.

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Trump’s letter to taxpayers sows further confusion, Olson said, because it arrives in an envelope from the Treasury Department and the IRS. The envelope notes that postage and fees were paid by the IRS.

“Just think of the optics of someone receiving a letter that comes in an IRS envelope, and the first thing they see is the letterhead of the president of the United States,” Olson said. “That immediately puts into people’s minds that the IRS is doing the will of the president of the United States and promoting the president of the United States rather than serving as an impartial broker and administrator of the revenue code.

“That will damage the IRS’s reputation, and it will damage the tax system. I don’t care who is the president of the United States. It doesn’t matter.