The Internal Revenue Service went live with its “Get My Payment” portal Wednesday, April 15th. This is the much-anticipated tool where you can get information on the status of your federal stimulus payment as well as provide direct deposit information so that you can receive your portion of the stimulus payment quicker rather than wait months for a paper check.

What Does the “Get My Payment” Tool Do?

The “Get My Payment” tool will let you:

• Check the status of your stimulus payment;
• Confirm your payment type (paper check or direct deposit);
• Get a projected direct deposit or paper check delivery date (or find out if a payment hasn’t been scheduled); and
• Enter your bank account information for direct deposit if the IRS doesn’t have your direct deposit information and they haven’t sent your payment yet.

The tool will be updated once daily, typically overnight. As a result, the IRS is urging people to only use the tool once per day, since there are millions of people expecting a payment who will want to use the tool.

What Information Will You Need?

In order to use Get My Payment, users will be asked to provide the following:

Tips to help you not get locked out while checking the Get My Payment tool

• You have very limited attempts of error before the system locks you out with A Please Try Again Later status for 24 hours.
• You should have your most recently filed 2018/2019 form 1040 Available to proceed.
• Don’t let it auto-fill any of your information.
• ALL ADDRESSES MUST BE ENTERED IN ALL CAPS AND EXACTLY HOW IT APPEARS ON THE US POSTAL SITE.
• When it asks for your ADJUSTED GROSS INCOME this information is found on line 8b of your 2019 form 1040. Enter this information WITHOUT ANY SYMBOLS .. (EX. AGI = 32,913.00 ) you will enter 32913 ONLY!
• When asked for your REFUND AMOUNT. This information is found on line 21a of your 2019 form 1040.

Payment Status

Get My Payment will display one of the following payment statuses:

A Payment date is Available

What if I check Get My Payment tool and see the last 4 digits of your social security number?

If the account number in the confirmation they gave you does not match your banking info (even if it’s the last four digits of your SSN) then you will be receiving a paper check. There is no way to go in and change the bank information they have on file.

I no longer have the bank account used on my tax return?

If the bank account is closed, the bank will reject the deposit and you will be issued your payment to the address the IRS has on file for you. If the Get My Payment application indicates your payment has been processed, you cannot change your bank account information.

If your payment status is showing a scheduled payment date there is no way to update this information on the IRS website because it has already processed. Once the deposit is rejected by the bank the funds will be released back to IRS/Treasury. It does not matter what account the funds were transferred to a tax preparer, your old account, an unknown account, etc. the deposit will be rejected and sent back to the IRS. In 4-6 weeks once the IRS receives the funds they will issue you a paper check. You will receive a check in the mail to the most recent address on file with the IRS. If for some reason your mailing address has changed you will need to contact the IRS to change your address or you can complete Form 8822.

Around 2 weeks after you receive your stimulus payment, the IRS will issue a letter to the address on file informing you of your stimulus payment delivery including what account it was sent to and/or address the check was mailed to.

You are Eligible for the Payment

If your stimulus payment has not been processed yet, then you can expect to see the following payment statuses:

.

• You should be in the next round of deposits. Check the Get My Payment tool on Saturday’s for updated information.

You are eligible for the payment. The IRS does not have enough information to direct deposit your payment at this time.

Payment Status Not Available

This message is shown if the IRS has not processed your tax return yet. In most cases, this is happening if you have not filed your 2018 or 2019 tax return or have filed a 2019 return recently.

If you verified your identity and received “Payment Status Not Available,” this means the IRS cannot determine your eligibility for a payment at this time. This may occur for a variety of reasons, for example, if you didn’t file either a 2018 or 2019 tax return or you recently filed and the return has not been fully processed. In certain cases, the Get My Payment app will be unable to tell you the status of your payment. 

You may receive this message for one of the following reasons:

• If you are not eligible for a payment (see IRS.gov on who is eligible and who is not eligible)
• If you are required to file a tax return and have not filed in tax year 2018 or 2019.
• If you recently filed your return or provided information through Non-Filers: Enter Your Payment Info on IRS.gov. Your payment status will be updated when processing is completed.
• If you are a SSA or RRB Form 1099 recipient, SSI or VA benefit recipient – the IRS is working with your agency to issue your payment; your information is not available in this app yet.

You can check the app again to see whether there has been an update to your information.  Get My Payment data is updated once per day, so there’s no need to check back more frequently.

We are unable to provide you with the status of your payment or perform the action requested

Please Try Again Later – Your account has been locked for 24 hours

Your account has been locked. You will be able to access the application after 24 hours have passed. To use Get My Payment, you must first verify your identity by answering security questions. If the information you enter does not match the IRS records multiple times, you will be locked out of Get My Payment for 24 hours for security reasons. If you are unable to verify your identity, you will not be able to use Get My Payment.

The Get My Payment tool is unavailable

What if I get a paper check from the IRS for my stimulus payment?

People who haven’t provided their direct-deposit information to the IRS previously will likely face a longer wait, with paper checks slated to start being issued the week of April 24.

Printed checks will be issued at a rate of about 5 million per week, which means it could take up to 20 weeks to get all printed checks out. This means that some checks could be delayed until August or September.

Printed Checks will be prioritized and mailed by income level, with the lowest-income Americans receiving their checks the earliest

• Individual taxpayers who earn less than $10,000 would have their checks in their mailbox around April 24,
• Those earning $20,000 or less would have their checks in their mailbox the following week, May 1.
• That would continue week by week through early September until completed.

What is the Stimulus Payment funding pattern?

The process and procedures for stimulus payment delivery will be consistent with how tax refund payments are made and the anticipated timeline is as follows:

• April 10, 2020 – The IRS started processing the first batch of Stimulus Payments for 80 Million individuals
• April 15, 2020 – Round 1 of Stimulus Payments were deposited into accounts
• April 20, 2020 – Stimulus Checks will start processing (5 Million checks to be issued per week for up to 20 weeks/rounds)
• April 22, 2020 – Round 2 of Stimulus Payments will be deposited into accounts
• April 24, 2020 – Round 1 of Stimulus Checks will roll out to mailboxes
• April 27-29, 2020 – Stimulus Payments for Social Security Recipients will begin to be deposited into accounts
• April 29, 2020 – Round 3 of Stimulus Payments will be deposited into accounts
• May 1, 2020 – Round 2 of Stimulus Checks will roll out to mailboxes
• May 6, 2020 – Round 4 of Stimulus Payments will be deposited into accounts
• May 8, 2020 – Round 3 of Stimulus Checks will roll out to mailboxes
• May 13, 2020 – Round 5 of Stimulus Payments will be deposited into accounts
• May 15, 2020 – Round 4 of Stimulus Checks will roll out to mailboxes
• May 20, 2020 – Round 6 of Stimulus Payments will be deposited into accounts
• May 22, 2020 – Round 5 of Stimulus Checks will roll out to mailboxes

The IRS plans to make additional rounds of payments by direct deposit and paper checks weekly until all payments are distributed. Initially, these additional rounds of payments will be made by direct deposit to taxpayers who provide direct deposit information to the IRS and who were not already paid in the first round.

What if I filed my taxes with Turbo Tax, H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, etc. and had a tax refund anticipation loan?

Your stimulus check could be delayed if you got an advance on your tax refund. Consumers who used certain tax-prep service and relied on a tax refund anticipation loan should enter their bank account information into the IRS “Get My Payment” site.

Please Feel Free to share this post and let us know what Get My Payment Status you are seeing when you try to track your stimulus payment.