Two weeks after the American Rescue Act, which authorized round 3 stimulus payments of $1,400, was signed into law, nearly 30 million Social Security beneficiaries are still waiting for their third round stimulus payments, says Rep. Richard Neal, chair of the Ways & Means Committee, who is blaming the Social Security Administration.
In a letter today, Rep. Neal wrote that the IRS asked the SSA to start sending necessary payment files to the IRS two weeks before the American Rescue Plan became law on March 11, 2021. As of today, SSA still has not provided the IRS with the payment files that are needed to issue EIPs [economic impact payments] to these struggling Americans. We demand that you immediately provide the IRS with this information by tomorrow, March 25, 2021,” the letter says.
The Internal Revenue Service announced that it disbursed another 37 million economic impact payments today. That’s on top of the 90 million disbursed last week, for a total of 127 million payments worth $325 billion issued so far. Some 158.5 million households are expected to qualify for the automatic payments.
The payments announced today primarily were sent to eligible taxpayers who filed 2019 or 2020 returns. People who don’t typically file a return but who successfully used the Non-Filers tool on IRS.gov last year were also sent payments in this batch. While the first batch of payments were mostly sent by direct deposit, the second batch included approximately 17 million direct deposit payments, nearly 15 million paper checks and approximately 5 million prepaid debit cards.
To check on the status of your Round 3 payment, use the IRS Get My Payment tool. You need to enter your Social Security number, street address and zip code. If you’re looking for the status of Round 1 and Round 2 payments—you’ll need that information for filing your 2020 tax return—check your pile of tax-related mail for IRS Notices 1444 and 1444-B or create an IRS online account.
For federal beneficiaries who did not file a 2019 or 2020 tax return or did not use the Non-Filers tool, the IRS is working directly with the Social Security Administration, the Railroad Retirement Board, and the Veterans Administration to obtain updated 2021 information to ensure that as many people as possible are sent fast, automatic payments. For these folks, the status information on the Get My Payment tool will look a little different. If you did not file a tax return and you receive SSA, RRB, SSI or VA benefits and your benefits are currently deposited to a Direct Express card, then your third stimulus payment will be deposited to that card. The bank information shown in Get My Payment will be a number associated with your Direct Express card and may be a number you don’t recognize.
Further reading:
IRS Backlog: 2.4 Million 2019 Tax Returns Still In Pipeline
In Switcheroo, IRS To Deliver Full Stimulus Payments To Those With Federal Tax Debts