IRS began processing $ 1,400 payments on Friday

On Friday, the Internal Revenue Service began processing stimulus checks, which have already started hitting Americans’ bank accounts and are expected to continue arriving throughout the weekend.

Officials from the Treasury Department and the IRS told reporters on Friday afternoon that most Americans did not need to take any additional steps to receive their payments and that most would be delivered by direct deposit.

“Even though tax season is in full swing, IRS employees have once again been working around the clock to quickly bring aid to the millions of Americans struggling to cope with this historic pandemic,” he said. IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a press release.

IRS officials have said the full $ 1,400 payments are expected to go to people with adjusted gross income up to $ 75,000, heads of households who make up to $ 112,500, and married couples jointly filing with one. annual income of up to $ 150,000.

Like previous stimulus checks, payments are reduced for those whose income exceeds these thresholds. This time, however, the Senate has lowered the income levels at which payments are staggered to zero. Unlike previous check rounds, families will receive payment for all dependents claimed on a tax return, not just their children under 17.

The third payment cycle will be based on the taxpayer’s last processed tax return for 2020 or 2019. Americans can check the status of their third payment using the Get My Payment tool starting Monday.

Stimulus checks, officially known as Economic Impact Payments, are an important part of the $ 1.9 trillion Covid relief package that Biden signed on Thursday. Historic legislation directs the Treasury to send direct payments of up to $ 1,400 to most Americans.

The bill also extends an unemployment insurance increase of $ 300 per week until September 6 and increases the child tax credit for one year. It will also inject nearly $ 20 billion into the Covid-19 vaccination effort, $ 25 billion in rental and utility aid, and $ 350 billion in state, local and tribal relief.

As one of Biden’s top economic advisers, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen defended the US bailout as necessary to restore US trade to full strength. She has repeatedly warned that the economy – and especially the workforce – could take much longer to recover without another expensive relief program.

“We think it’s very important to have a big package [that] responds to the pain this has caused – 15 million Americans behind on their rent, 24 million adults and 12 million children who don’t have enough to eat, small businesses fail, ”Yellen told CNBC in February, before the bill was passed.

“I think these checks are really going to bring relief and they will help jumpstart our economy, giving people money to spend when we can get out and go back to our old lives,” she added.