- Americans can now track the status of their new stimulus check and its estimated arrival with the Get My Payment online tool from the IRS.
- The new stimulus checks are being sent out in the form of direct deposits as well as paper checks, and some people will even receive their payment as a pre-loaded debit card.
- The $900 billion COVID relief bill included a deadline of January 15, after which the IRS will stop sending out the new stimulus checks.
If you needed any reminder of just how central the idea of a new stimulus check is to the current US political landscape — which is to say, if you’ve forgotten that it took months on end for Congress to produce the current legislation providing for $600 stimulus checks — just look to Georgia’s Senate runoff race happening today.
President Trump called for Congress to raise the $600 checks to $2,000, something Democrats quickly got on board with, as did many Republicans — but not the Senate Republican leadership. President-elect Joe Biden seized on this as the message to Georgia voters in the final hours of the campaign there, with the balance of power in the currently GOP-controlled Senate up for grabs. “Their election will put an end to the block in Washington on the $2,000 stimulus check,” Biden said of the possibility of either Republican Senator from Georgia winning re-election today. “If you send Sen. Perdue and Loeffler back to Washington, those checks will never get there. It’s just that simple. The power is literally in your hands.” Oh, and speaking of checks “getting there,” there’s also now a way for people around the country to check the status of their own check online, now that the IRS has brought its stimulus check tracker back.
People can follow the status of both their first and second stimulus check payments by using the IRS’ Get My Payment tool, available in English and Spanish at IRS.gov. After asking you some basic identifying information, that tool should give you an idea of when your stimulus check will arrive.
“The IRS and the Treasury Department began issuing a second round of Economic Impact Payments, often referred to as stimulus payments, last week,” the IRS explained. “The direct deposit payments may take several days to post to individual accounts … Paper checks also began going out and will continue to be sent through January. Some people will be mailed debit cards in January, and the IRS urges people to carefully check their mail.”
If you haven’t received your second stimulus check yet, don’t worry. In the just-passed $900 COVID relief bill, Congress set a deadline of January 15 by which the new payments are supposed to have been sent out. If for some reason you haven’t received the payment by then, you’ll need to claim that money when you do your taxes this year.
