If you have direct deposit, you will receive payment first. After the CARES Act was signed into law in late March by President Donald Trump, it took the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department about three weeks to send out the first stimulus checks.
If a second round is approved before the end of the year as expected, that period could be shortened as agencies already have more digital infrastructure to process payments.
In addition, the IRS added to its files information on millions of Americans who are not required to file taxes with the help of the “Non-filers” tool.
The importance of direct deposit
In the case of the first distribution, the beneficiaries who initially received the funds were those who provided data from their bank accounts for direct deposits.
That group received the money in mid-April by electronic transfer.
Until May, the IRS allowed most potential recipients who had not received their checks to enter their banking information through the agency’s website so that the check could be processed electronically.
159 million payments in about two months
As of last June, the agency reported 159 million economic impact payments; 120 million of these were processed through direct deposit.
As for checks by mail, by that date the entity had sent most of them, equivalent to about 35 million.
In May, the IRS also mailed the funds to some 4 million people in the form of a pre-paid debit card.
Key: when and how did you get your first check?
To get a better idea of how a second round will be processed, you need to consider when and how you got the money in the first round.
If you received it via direct deposit, a second payment will most likely arrive that way and faster than the rest of the eligible population.
If your case is the exact opposite, that is, you did not receive the check, it is very likely that the same thing will happen in the case of a second round or you will face delays in the arrival of the money.
You may be part of the group that must provide additional information to the IRS so that they can process the payment.
Recipients in this situation or who never got their first check should request payment in the upcoming tax season in the form of the Refund Recovery Credit.