The New 'Stimulus Check': 'Plus Up' Payments Are Hitting Bank Accounts

Joe Biden Plus Up Payment

The New 'Stimulus Check': 'Plus Up' Payments Are Hitting Bank Accounts

The highly anticipated sixth batch of coronavirus stimulus checks under President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan included two million more payments to financially hurt Americans.

 

The highly anticipated sixth batch of coronavirus stimulus checks under President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan included two million more payments to financially hurt Americans.

Of these newest payments worth nearly $3.4 billion, know that about nine hundred thousand were issued via direct deposit, while 1.1 million were disbursed as paper checks.

 

But what’s most notable about this wave of payments is that it included more than seven hundred thousand “plus-up” or supplemental payments for those who only received partial $1,400 checks on an earlier date.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are in line to get their hands on payments that “could include a situation where a person’s income dropped in 2020 compared to 2019, or a person had a new child or dependent on their 2020 tax return, and other situations,” the Internal Revenue Service said in a statement.

In all, the agency has estimated that it will ultimately disburse more than $1.2 billion of such payments to Americans.

Be aware that many of these extra payments should already have landed in bank accounts, but if not, the IRS has assured Americans that these funds will continue to be sent out on a weekly basis going forward—especially as the agency continues to ramp up the processing of tax returns from 2020 and 2019.

Also, keep in mind that since Tax Day now has been extended to May 17, the deliveries of “plus-up” payments could stretch on for weeks. For the lucky ones, they could already have been sent off as a mailpiece waiting to be delivered by the post office.

Fortunately, the latest batch made sure to once again target federal beneficiaries—as roughly six hundred thousand payments were disbursed to Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries, including those individuals with foreign addresses.

Other recipients included those individuals whom the IRS did not previously have on record. The government has been urging Americans who do not receive federal benefits or typically file tax returns to submit one as soon as possible in order to provide their payment information to receive the stimulus cash.

For frustrated individuals wanting some sort of answer regarding their payment status, know that there are options out there. One of the more popular ways to garner that information is via the “Get My Payment” tool at www.irs.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment. To use it, one will just need to enter his or her full Social Security or tax ID number, date of birth, street address, and ZIP code.

Others can request an IRS payment trace, which can be achieved by calling the IRS at 800-919-9835 or mailing or faxing a completed Form 3911, “Taxpayer Statement Regarding Refund.”

U.S. taxpayers can also call the IRS Economic Impact Payment department at 800-919-9835—but be warned that “IRS live phone assistance is extremely limited at this time,” according to the agency’s website.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.