What’s keeping your stimulus check?

What's keeping your stimulus check?

We’ve been trying to keep our readers informed about the economic impact payments that most taxpayers are set to receive. However, one of the questions we keep receiving is “Why haven’t I received my payment yet?” While we can’t tell everyone what’s going on with each individual payment, we can at least try to tell our readers the most common reasons why payments have not been received yet.

The most common reason is that the IRS hasn’t issued the payment yet. Due to the massive scope of this undertaking, some payments may not be released for months. If you go to the IRS’s Get My Payment tool and you receive the ‘payment status not available’ message, that could mean a few things. It could be because you entered your information incorrectly. Be careful when entering your information to make sure you haven’t made a typo. If you’ve filed your 2019 taxes but they haven’t been processed by the IRS yet, that could also hold up your stimulus payment. Your payment could also be delayed if your bank is having to deal with additional demands due to the stimulus payments.

However, what you may not know is that if you filed your taxes through a professional service like H&R Block, your payment may be sent by mail. If you used a service that allowed you to get an advance on your tax refund, there’s a good chance that the IRS does not have your banking information on file. Those services often use debit cards that are attached to temporary bank accounts. If the temporary account is closed the payment will be rejected and then you’ll have to wait for a paper check.

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Please keep in mind that not everyone is going to get their stimulus payment right away and you should plan your current finances accordingly.

(H/T CNet)