The IRS and Treasury Department have some good news for one big group of people, Social Security recipients, who’ve been waiting in frustration for weeks now to get a stimulus check update.
The agency announced today that those Americans should receive their $1,400 stimulus check starting this weekend, with the majority of the payments being sent electronically (meaning, they’ll arrive faster than they would through the mail) and received by April 7. This stems from the IRS receiving payment-related details on March 25 that it had been waiting on from the Social Security Administration, which allowed the tax agency to then move forward with reviewing, validating, and testing tens of millions of records to make sure that this group of people’s stimulus payments were properly calculated.
If no additional issues arise, the IRS said in a news release issued on Wednesday, then it currently expects to complete this work and to begin processing these payment files at the end of this week. The majority of the payments will be sent out in the form of both electronic direct deposits to bank accounts, as well as via payments to existing debit cards.
Today’s stimulus check update applies to federal beneficiaries that include Social Security retirement, survivor or disability beneficiaries, as well as Supplemental Security Income and Railroad Retirement Board beneficiaries who didn’t file a 2019 or 2020 federal tax return. “Our teams immediately began processing data we received last week for federal benefit recipients,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said. “We know how important these payments are, and we are doing everything we can to make these payments as fast as possible to these important individuals.”
As we noted in our previous post about the delays faced by Social Security recipients, according to a March 24 letter from a House committee to the Social Security Administration, some 30 million Social Security recipients were still waiting to receive their stimulus checks. The SSA had been asked by the IRS to send payment files to the tax agency two weeks before President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion stimulus legislation into law on March 11.
Congressional lawmakers said they received notice just one day later, on March 25, from the SSA, explaining that the benefits agency sent payment details for 30 million Social Security recipients to the IRS that same morning. Fast forward to Monday of this week, with the tax agency confirming that it has received the payment data on those Social Security beneficiaries.
As always, stimulus check recipients can use the IRS’ Get My Payment tool on the tax agency’s website for up-to-date information about the processing of their payment, when it’s expected to arrive, and what form it will take. However, an important note regarding the federal beneficiaries who are part of today’s announcement: The IRS says that the Get My Payment tool will not be updated until the weekend of April 3-4 with information for federal beneficiaries expecting payments next week.
