Stimulus Check was like the light amongst darkness for the Americans. The COVID-19 disaster has been a nightmare for many Americans, and it’s not over yet. We’re still dealing with power outages and flooding as well as economic disruptions due to the loss of manufacturing plants, which means there’s still money owed to taxpayers who qualify for federal economic impact payments.
So far, however, it looks like only about three million people have received their checks since the program started back in March — which is just a fraction of those who are eligible for money under the CARES Act (Comprehensive Assistance for Relief Everywhere). The IRS is working hard to get the checks out. It’s a big job, and it will take them a few months to complete it.
The IRS announced that it expects most taxpayers will receive their stimulus checks by August 1st. So if you haven’t gotten your check yet, don’t worry: You’ll be getting something in the mail soon!
Stimulus Check Might Not Be A Good Idea
If you’ve been waiting anxiously for your tax rebate check but have not received it yet, don’t panic just yet—the IRS says that they won’t stop sending out checks until August 1st. If this is the case for you, contact your tax preparer or the IRS directly as soon as possible so that they can look into why there was a delay in processing your payment.
The IRS indicated that the first batch of stimulus checks would start going out during the week of April 20 but almost immediately pushed that date back at least two weeks. As of early May, the agency still hadn’t gone public with an updated schedule but promises it will be sending millions more payments out “as soon as possible.”
The problem is not so much in printing and mailing checks as it is with creating new payment processes and systems from scratch, something no one had done before. The IRS has said from the beginning that processing all those benefits would take time—and they were right. But plenty of taxpayers are already upset about their delayed refunds and don’t want to wait any longer for their economic impact payments too (or appreciate being reminded).
The bottom line is that the CARES Act was a good idea, and it’s certainly better than nothing. But just because the IRS has paid out $16 billion in economic impact payments so far doesn’t mean you should expect another stimulus check any time soon. If anything, getting one of these checks would be like winning the lottery — you’d be lucky to get either one!
