According to the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Americans will begin to receive stimulus checks up by mid-April if their direct deposit details are on file with the government from 2018 or 2019 tax returns. Otherwise, checks will be mailed, which could take several months.
Approximately 150 million taxpayers will be eligible for the stimulus checks, but of those the IRS estimated that only 70 million people have their direct deposit information on file. Therefore, 80 million Americans will have to wait for their checks to be mailed.
The IRS is expected to make between 50 million to 70 million payments to Americans through direct deposit, likely the week of April 13. An online portal will be set up by the IRS for taxpayers to provide direct deposit information if they did not do so on their tax returns.
Paper checks are set to be issued in late April and will be issued at a rate of about 5 million per week. With this timeline, some Americans may not receive their checks until the beginning of September.
Americans with the lowest adjusted gross income will receive their checks first, according to The Washington Post. Below is the timetable for the first checks:
- Taxpayers with income up to $10,000: April 24
- Taxpayers with income up to $20,000: May 1
- Taxpayers with income up to $40,000: May 15
Checks will continue to be mailed each week according to income increments of $10,000. Joint taxpayers earning $198,000, the maximum allowed under the stimulus, will receive stimulus checks on September 4. All others would be sent on September 11 to those who did not have tax information on file and had to apply for checks.
The CARES Act stipulates that individuals who earn $75,000 or less will receive $1,200 and couples making $150,000 or less will receive $2,400, with an additional $500 per child. For individuals and couples whose income is above those amounts will have a reduced payment by $5 for each $100 above the $75,000/$150,000 thresholds. Single filers with income exceeding $99,000 and $198,000 for joint filers with no children are not eligible.
Social Security recipients are eligible to receive a check without filing a tax return. The IRS will use information on the Form SSA-1099 and Form RRB-1099 to generate the checks to senior citizens, railroad retirees and Social Security recipients who are not otherwise required to file a tax return.
READ MORE: Trump Signs $2.2 Trillion Economic Stimulus Bill into Law
