The Internal Revenue Service announced this week that Economic Impact (stimulus) payments will begin to be issued this weekend for some federal beneficiaries who did not file a tax return in the past two years. These upcoming payments will apply to Social Security, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) beneficiaries who did not file a 2019 or 2020 tax return or did not use the Non-Filers tool.
The process for these individuals takes longer because the IRS received the data from the Social Security Administration on March 25 and then had to review, validate, and test tens of millions of records to ensure eligibility and proper calculation of the stimulus payments.
If no additional issues arise, the IRS expects to complete that work by the end of the week and begin issuing the payments, the majority of which will be sent electronically and will be received on April 7.
The IRS stressed, however, that most Social Security retirement and disability beneficiaries, railroad retirees and VA benefits recipients who are eligible for stimulus payments do not need to take any action to get them and that the process will be automatic.
For other individuals, the IRS states, “Some federal benefit recipients may need to file a 2020 tax return, even if they don’t usually file, to provide information the IRS needs to send payments for any qualified dependent. Eligible individuals in this group should file a 2020 tax return to be considered for an additional payment for their qualified dependent as quickly as possible.” Additional information is available on the IRS website.
The Get My Payment tool on the IRS website will be updated the weekend of April 3-4 with information for federal beneficiaries expecting payments next week.
VA Beneficaries
The IRS also said that it is continuing to review data received for Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits recipients and expects to determine a payment date for those individuals soon. The current estimate for VA beneficiaries who do not regularly file tax returns is that they would receive their stimulus payments around mid April.
