Payments of $1,400 to residents of the island, a U.S. territory, will take longer to arrive because the IRS must first approve a distribution plan.
The $1,400 stimulus checks from the Biden Administration’s “U.S. Rescue Plan” for residents of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, will not begin to arrive until at least May because the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has not yet approved the distribution plan submitted by authorities on the island.
The assistant secretary of Internal Revenue, Roxanna Santiago, said almost two weeks ago in an interview with Telenoticias that the agency has not given the go-ahead to the plan presented by the Puerto Rico Treasury Department to release the third round payments.
Santiago added that although the plan has not been approved, the Treasury Department has been discussing the plan with the IRS for days, which implies that the talks are moving forward.
“We are still waiting for the approval of the distribution plan… We have been discussing with them for several days already,” the official indicated to the TV channel.
“The taxpayer does not have to make any transaction if he/she has already filed a 2019 or 2020 return,” she added about the process to receive the direct payment.
Before the measure was signed into law, Treasury Secretary Francisco Parés Alicea told media outlets such as NotiCel that it would take longer to disburse the money for the current round because the required plan was different from those filed previously.
According to the Treasury chief, the start of the distribution could be delayed until May due to the process.
Treasury has not made any additional updates on the authorization process.
On the agency’s website, a March 11 entry indicates that Parés Alicea submitted the plan for the distribution of the third $1,400 stimulus check as part of President Joe Biden and his team’s new economic rescue package to the IRS and the U.S. Treasury Department that day.
The disbursement of money, according to Treasury estimates, could reach $3.5 billion and would reach approximately 2.6 million people in Puerto Rico.
The statement notes that the process for final approval would take a month.
“Pedro R. Pierluisi’s urgency for the aid to arrive, we submitted to the IRS and the Federal Treasury the first draft of our distribution plan for the $1.4 billion economic impact payment. The process before final approval should take approximately four weeks, and we will use that time internally to prepare and begin disbursements immediately after we receive the go-ahead,” the secretary said in the press release.