Oh, don’t worry. Not spending it.
Each person gets a check. There’s logistics, but it’s not THAT complex.
Just bumping the thread because I was idly curious if there was any update. Has the IRS sent anyone to break your kneecap yet?
I’ll have to check. I’m horrible with money - it’s a neurosis of mine, I can’t explain it, I digress - I did check my balance the other day and I did have a lot more money that I thought I had. I took it as my typical flightiness with knowing my balance. I’ll have to look at my account to see what’s going on … if I have enough Xanax.
Now that I think about it, I got a second Trump-scrawl letter too.
Nope. I have tried to contact them, but the email contact make you choose from topics, and “I got a second stimulus check” is not a choice. Wait time on the phone is over an hour. I have called one minute after they open in the am, and it is still over an hour. I can’t even get through to the local office.
I got only one, but it shortly preceded the second check. Didn’t get a letter before the first one.
I have not gotten my tax refund yet (getting a really good one from the gov’t; got like $42 from the state). Waiting to see if it is withheld in part to cover the second check.
It occurred to me just now that they could have reduced our refund, and it could have coincidentally come to $1,200. Maybe that was our tax refund. I doubt it, but it’s remotely possible. I should call the bank, and find out exactly what the deposit says; I don’t see the whole message on the computer, so I know only that it came from the IRS, which is where the first check came from as well. It has been a while, and we haven’t seen the refund, although we got the $42 from the state over a week ago.
I don’t see why anyone needs to send the government a check. Without notice, the IRS can take it out of your bank account as easily as they put it in; they don’t need your permission for either.
This is the reason I have not mailed a check to return the money paid to my parent’s estate. No doubt the day I mail the check is the day the IRS claws back the money from the account, and the instead of being even the estate will have paid $2400 too much. My view is that the IRS made the mistake, the IRS can fix it. Settling the estate is enough work as it is, I don’t need to clean up after the IRS on top of it. I’ll send them a check only if they specifically request it in writing.
Each person doesn’t get a check. Each person, who is at least 18 years old, and not claimed as a dependent on someone else’s taxes, and has an income of less than $75,000, gets a payment of $1,200. Each person who meets the other requirements but has an income in excess of $75,000 gets less, on a sliding scale down to $0.
Some of those people will get a check. Some will get a direct deposit. But first, the IRS has to find them.
If they filed taxes in 2019 or 2020, and got a refund, and chose to receive that refund through direct deposit, the process is fairly easy. But even then, some of those people will have changed account numbers or banks or otherwise no longer have access to the account on record. Some will have died.
Many eligible individuals didn’t choose direct deposit for their refunds, or didn’t get a refund, so the IRS doesn’t have their direct deposit information. The IRS will need a physical address for them to deliver their checks. They should have a valid mailing address when they filed, but many of them will have moved since then.
Many people eligible for the payment won’t have actually filed an income tax return, because their income was too low or they belonged to another exempted group. They may not have filed a return in years, or have never filed a return. The IRS will need to try to somehow find their physical mailing address.
Some people will have unclear or complicated status. They might have been claimed as a dependent in 2019, but be planning on filing on their own in 2020, but had not yet filed at the time the payments started going out. Or they might have filed on their own but also inappropriately been claimed as a dependent by their parents. And so on.
It’s not a simple matter of logistics and just mailing a check to each person. There is not a central registry of every single person in the U.S. with their current address and/or bank account information.
I think I received the money only once but even if I received a second $1,200, wouldn’t the simplest thing be just to leave it until the end of the year and sort it out when I do my tax return?
Yes. But this is the government. There are Procedures To Be Followed.
Years ago I paid off my mortgage (or so I thought). I actually still owed an amount less than $100 and for some reason CHASE interpreted the situation as a foreclosure danger. President Obama had a program to help people facing foreclosure, so CHASE sent my info to this program.
I was royally pissed off over the matter. I called CHASE multiple times each and every day until things were straightened out. At that point I continued calling, demanding that CHASE reimburse me for the time I spent on the phone, fighting “foreclosure”.
So, CHASE FedEx’d me a check for $75 along with a letter of apology. Cool. Then, two days later I received another FedEx envelope with another check for $75 and another copy of the apology letter. Two days after *that * I got a third FedEx envelope with a third $75 check and a third copy of the letter.
I cashed all three checks and hoped to continue receiving them, but after the third that was it. Never heard from CHASE again.
Real-life Monopoly move: bank error in your favor! 
I figured out where the error originated. My son inherited a little money a few years ago, and we didn’t file for him at first, but found out we were wrong, and were supposed to file on his behalf because of it, so we filed last year for the previous year. Anyway, even though he’s only 13, because he had a separate filing, he got his own stimulus check. The letter from Donald J. Trump addressed specifically to him came today.
His savings account is attached to mine, that’s why it went into my checking account, I guess.
We never did get the “child” check for him, so we’re not sure if he’s actually entitled to this because he filed and paid (albeit very small) taxes, or if it’s an error, and we should have the $500 check instead.
I have tried to call the IRS, but the wait times are 1hr.+. I tried emailing, but the option of “My minor child got $1200” is not one of the options.
Monday, I’m going to try the local office again.
In the meantime we’re not spending it, and have not told the boychik about it. We have moved it to his account, where it will earn interest, though.
That makes a lot of sense.
Since he’s a dependent, he’s definitely not eligible for the $1,200 - you and your spouse should have received the $500 dependent payment.
It seems like there’s simply no statutory provision requiring you to return an accidental over-payment. If you do want to return it, see Q63 on this page. Note that at the top of the page, the IRS specifically asks, “Please DO NOT call the IRS” with questions about the EIP.
I’m kind of at a loss. When my mother died, she left significant amounts to my brother and me, but the remnants of a checking account her mother held was divided among the (3) great-grandchildren, and was about $1,000 apiece. We decided to require the boychik to save half of it, but let him use the rest for something he had been wanting, that wasn’t frivolous, and he had been saving for.
We didn’t think he had to file for that, but apparently because of the state my grandmother lived in, he did. He actually ended up getting back about $10 in inheritance taxes he’s paid (weird state laws) on it back.
I contacted me cousin, and gave him the heads up that his daughters might be getting stimulus checks too. Apparently they got the “Donald J. Trump” letters, but hadn’t gotten any money yet.
I am not sure whether you are talking about your son’s 2018 or 2019 return, but look at his Form 1040 for that year.
On the 2018 version right under the taxpayer name, there is a line that says “O Someone can claim you as a dependent.” On the 2019 version, under the “foreign country name” there is a section called “Standard Deduction” and a line in that section that says “Someone can claim: O You as a dependent.”
I bet you forgot to check the box on that line. Is that right?
No.
However, it is a 2017 return filed in 2019, because we didn’t know it should have been filed in 2018. We used a 2019 online form (which we were told was OK).
If the money isn’t returned and you aren’t obligated to return it (as I think someone above said might be the case), I wonder what the tax implications are.
As I understand it you don’t claim the EIP payment you were entitled to as income because it was technically offset by a tax credit. But if you got extra money that you keep, would you have to report it as income?
I haven’t gotten my first one yet (waiting on a paper check, could yet take weeks).