- The IRS has just announced that about 50,000 people are getting a new stimulus check next month.
- Don’t rejoice just yet, however. This doesn’t mean Congress all of a sudden reached the deal everyone was hoping for regarding new coronavirus stimulus relief.
- These new checks are simply to correct a mistake and to distribute coronavirus stimulus money that was erroneously withheld.
The Internal Revenue Service has just announced something that many of you have been waiting for months to hear — that it’s mailing out thousands of stimulus checks soon. But don’t start cheering just yet.
As we noted yesterday, the new stimulus check that millions of Americans have been hoping for (as a follow-up to the stimulus check most people received earlier this year, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic) is not coming after all, it seems. So what’s behind this new announcement Wednesday from the IRS? The tax agency is actually simply correcting a mistake, by mailing out 50,000 checks with money that some of you should have gotten already.
Here’s how the tax agency explained things in its announcement:
The Internal Revenue Service will soon send catch-up Economic Impact Payment checks to about 50,000 individuals whose portion of the EIP was diverted to pay their spouse’s past-due child support.
These catch-up payments are due to be issued in early-to-mid-September. They will be mailed as checks to any eligible spouse who submitted Form 8379, Injured Spouse Allocation, along with their 2019 federal income tax return, or in some cases, their 2018 return. These spouses do not need to take any action to get their money. The IRS will automatically issue the portion of the EIP that was applied to the other spouse’s debt.
The IRS goes on to explain that it’s aware some people didn’t file a Form 8379 and didn’t get their portion of the EIP for the same reason as stated above. According to the tax agency, those people don’t need to take any additional action or submit a new form. “The IRS does not yet have a timeframe but will automatically issue the portion of the EIP that was applied to the other spouse’s debt at a later date,” the announcement goes on to note.
If you’re a taxpayer that this announcement affects, you can check the status of your catch-up payment by using the Get My Payment tool, available at IRS.gov.
Additionally, as we previously noted, new stimulus checks are being sent out to apparently also correct a different issue. As part of the first coronavirus stimulus bill that Congress passed back at the end of March, there was funding included in it to support the first wave of stimulus checks. When you got that check, it was supposed to have included a little extra money if you have children — $500 for each eligible child under the age of 17.
For a variety of reasons, some Americans did not receive that money for their children, and checks to cover that missing amount are what the IRS has said are being sent out over the next couple of months. According to the tax agency, these additional catch-up payments, as the tax agency refers to the money that you were supposed to have already gotten, will be issued by mid-October.
