By Joshua Huff, sports editor
WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service announced on Friday that it will begin to send out some stimulus payments next week, beginning with individuals who elected to receive direct deposit tax returns in 2018 and 2019.
The first round of direct-deposit payments will be made automatically to qualifying taxpayers, the IRS said. The agency also announced that Social Security beneficiaries will receive their payments automatically.
“Social Security recipients who are not typically required to file a tax return do not need to take an action, and will receive their payment directly to their bank account,” Mnuchin said in a press conference this past week.
The IRS will make about 60 million payments to Americans through direct deposit in mid-April, likely the week of April 13. To be eligible for direct deposit, the IRS needs to have the direct deposit information from individual’s 2018 or 2019 tax returns. However, people without direct deposit set up with the IRS will soon have the option to input their account information online, Mnuchin said.
That option was unveiled by the IRS on Friday as the agency launched a program that allows for people who typically do not file returns to input their Social Security number, name, address, the number of dependents and bank account information if they want to receive a direct deposit payment.
This follows the news reported by the Associated Press that individuals who do not have direct deposit setup with the IRS could possibly have to wait up to several weeks or even months to get a check in the mail. In a memo obtained by the AP, the IRS will start sending out paper checks the week of May 4 and will send out around five million checks a week, which means “it could take up to 20 weeks to get all the checks out. That timeline would delay some checks until the week of Aug. 17,” the AP said.
The stimulus package stipulates that anyone who earns $75,000 or less will receive $1,200, and couples making $150,000 or less will receive twice that amount, with an additional $500 per child, which means $2,400 per married couple plus payments per child. The payments decrease for individuals and couples who make more money, with individuals who make more than $99,000 not eligible.
Those earning more than $99,000, or $198,000 for joint filers, are not eligible.
The stimulus checks will be issued in reverse order of adjusted gross income. That means that people with the lowest income will get payments first.
