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Are You Eligible to Get a Bonus Stimulus Check on Top of Your Third Payment? Here’s How and Why
It is satisfying to get a tax refund and may feel even better this year because if you file your taxes on time, you may be rewarded with a bonus stimulus check. Even if you aren't owed a refund, you could be pleased to get another stimulus check from the IRS in the mail.
Hundreds of thousands of additional stimulus checks were just mailed to Americans based on the information they submitted on their tax returns. If you filed your taxes before the May 17 deadline, you might be part of that group.
Filing a tax return on time can give you a bonus stimulus payment
Under the COVID-19 rescue package, which Congress passed, and President Joe Biden signed in March, the IRS claims it has distributed another 1.8 million direct payments. The most recent checks had official payment dates of May 26, and over half of them, over 900,000, were based on tax returns that the receivers had recently submitted.
These new payouts are divided into two groups. Some of them will go to individuals who didn't have up-to-date personal or financial information on file with the IRS previously. According to MoneyWise, payment would have been delayed if the tax agency didn't know where or how to issue you a stimulus check.
However, submitting a complete tax return has filled in the blanks, allowing the IRS to grant you long-awaited relief. You may get a full $1,400 check from the third round of COVID-19 payments, and if you're due a tax refund, which this year has averaged more than $2,900, you may get a total of more than $4,300.
The IRS refers to "plus-up" payments as the second category of tax-related stimulus checks. Their bonus funds for people who received reduced stimulus checks based on their 2019 taxes but who recently filed 2020 forms show their income fell drastically last year due to the pandemic.
If this applies to you, you may now be eligible for additional stimulus payments and will be given a plus-up. According to the IRS, it has disbursed $1.6 billion in plus-ups in the last two weeks.
The IRS has already made over six million of these bonus stimulus checks this year. It has reassured many people by stating that it will continue to compute and send them these additional checks automatically. Keep in mind that a significant portion of the recent batches went to new tax filers who did not previously have the required information on file with the IRS, as per The National Interest.
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Why could you get a bonus stimulus check?
Those who received the $1,400 may be eligible for a bonus after their 2020 tax return is finalized. The money includes "ongoing supplemental payments for those who received payments based on their 2019 tax returns earlier in March but are now eligible for a new or bigger payment based on their recently submitted 2020 tax returns," according to the IRS.
Per The Sun, Americans may be eligible for the bonus if their income has decreased in the previous year or if they have a new child or are dependent. To be qualified, the adjustment must have occurred between your 2019 and 2020 tax returns.
The extra payments were announced on April 1. They apply to those who had previously failed to submit the IRS with information about their dependents or income. The bonus stimulus check will be distributed weekly, so if you have only recently submitted your tax return, you may receive it in the coming weeks.
The announcement comes as Americans continue to expect a fourth stimulus package. More than 75 legislators now support another round of stimulus funding, maybe in the form of recurring monthly payments until the pandemic is over.
A Change.org petition for $2,000 monthly recurring checks has piled up more than two million signatures as of this week. Stephanie Bonin, a restaurant owner in Denver, Colorado, initiated the petition last year. Since January, when Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and 55 other Democratic legislators wrote a letter to President Biden emphasizing the importance of regular payments, support for the proposal has grown.
Read Article: New Stimulus Checks Worth $3,600 to Start Hitting Bank Accounts, Who Will Get Paid?
