The agency has much less time this time to complete the processing of all payments. The new law signed by President Donald Trump for minimum $600 stimulus checks stipulates that the Treasury Department has until January 15 to distribute those funds to beneficiaries.
According to media reports such as The Washington Post and CNET, if some payments do not reach eligible recipients by that date, these individuals must apply for the funds as a credit when they file their tax returns this year.
Amidst the debate in Congress and the call to increase the minimum amount from $600 to $2,000, the ability of the agencies concerned to meet the deadline set by the law is uncertain.
Republican Representative Kevin Brady indicated on Twitter that some Americans would receive the first payments this week. But Brady’s announcement came before the new controversy between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate over the amount of the checks that could delay the proceedings.
The same statement by the representative indicates that payments by check and debit card by mail will be extended until January 15, at a rate of 10 million payments per week. Brady also mentions the option of claiming a late or incomplete payment by way of a tax credit if the person does not receive the payment due by that date.
Paradoxically, Brady is, at the same time, one of the Republicans who opposes a larger stimulus check or $2,000 because, in his opinion, the money will be directed to paying off credit card debt and “new Internet purchases at Walmart, Best Buy, or Amazon.
In practice, the above deadlines would be very difficult to meet, judging by the performance of the IRS and the Treasury in the first round of distribution under CARES.
Timeline of the First Round of Stimulus Checks
As part of the above process, the first checks arrived in beneficiaries’ bank accounts about three weeks after the law was signed.
The rest of the payments, which the IRS considers almost all, were completed by June.
For that month, the agency reported 159 million economic impact payments; 120 million of these were processed through direct deposit.
As for checks sent by mail, by that date the agency 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.
However, the IRS continued to process first-round checks until last November. These payments are for low-income Americans who are not required to file a tax return and had to provide their information to the IRS through the “Non-filers” tool. The deadline for using the service expired on November 21. Anyone who did not claim the payment due by that date should apply for it in the next tax season as a “Recovery Refund Credit.
The agency estimated in September the amount of payments due for this concept at about 9 million.
But studies and reports from nonprofit organizations expand that number to at least 12 million.