Stimulus Check Payments: Here's The Current Status For The New Round Of $1,400 Checks

The Internal Revenue Service has confirmed the distribution of another round of COVID-19 stimulus checks, this time consisting largely of plus-up payments. This week’s stimulus is especially large due to containing two weeks’ worth of checks in addition to payments resulting from IRS tax reviews.

The IRS has sent out over $3.5 billion through 1.8 million payments. Just over half came in the form of direct banking deposits, with the rest composed of physical checks.

Around half of the payments sent were “plus-up” checks, bonus funds triggered by IRS review of tax returns. Some people are also just now receiving their $1,400 base checks, mostly families that normally don’t file taxes but did so this year for the payments.

According to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig’s congressional testimony, that brings the total amount of COVID-19 relief payments up to 472 million, distributing $807 billion.

The IRS is still working to reach out to underserved communities that still hold people who are eligible for relief payments but aren’t represented in government databases. That can include underbanked people who don’t have bank accounts or don’t normally pay taxes.

The homeless population is another target. The IRS recently clarified that no home address is required to qualify for the stimulus checks or the expanded child tax credit that passed in the same omnibus spending bill.

Around 8 million checks are estimated to be extant. The IRS is telling residents to file tax returns even after the filing deadline: eligible persons will receive payments even past the tax return due date.