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As tax filing season starts, 1 million taxpayers are already set to receive automatic payments from the IRS.
That has many people asking, “Will I receive an IRS stimulus check in 2025?” “IRS automatic stimulus payments” is a breakout search, with rising queries related to eligibility, Google Trends data from Wednesday shows.
Those sums are not this year’s tax refund. Instead, the payments of up to $1,400 per individual represent Recovery Rebate Credits that were not claimed by eligible people on their 2021 tax returns.
“Looking at our internal data, we realized that one million taxpayers overlooked claiming this complex credit when they were actually eligible,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a December statement when the automatic payments were announced.
“To minimize headaches and get this money to eligible taxpayers, we’re making these payments automatic, meaning these people will not be required to go through the extensive process of filing an amended return to receive it,” Werfel said.
Who is now eligible for a $1,400 payment?
The IRS plans to issue about $2.4 billion in automatic payments to eligible individuals who did not claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 tax returns.
The maximum payment is $1,400 per individual, or $2,800 per married couple.
A family of four — including a married couple and two qualifying dependents claimed on their tax returns — may receive up to $5,600.
However, the payment amounts may vary, according to the IRS.
The full credit amount is available to individual taxpayers with up to $75,000 in adjusted gross income and to married couples who file jointly with up to $150,000 for 2021. The credit begins to phase out for income above those thresholds and is reduced to zero for individuals with $80,000 or more in adjusted gross income and married couples with $160,000 or more.
What do I need to do to receive an automatic payment?
If you’re eligible to receive a payment, you do not need to do anything, according to the IRS.
The payments should arrive by late January and will be direct deposited to the bank account listed on your 2023 tax return or sent by paper check to the address the IRS has on record.
Eligible taxpayers will also receive a separate letter notifying them the payment has been made.
How can I claim the money if I don’t receive a check?
Did the stimulus checks cause inflation?
Millions of Americans looked forward to the stimulus checks in the wake of the sudden Covid-19 shutdown that may have cut off their usual sources of income.
Yet following those 2020 and 2021 payments — as well as enhanced unemployment and direct child tax credit checks — inflation spiked to levels not seen in decades.
That has led some to wonder whether those stimulus efforts contributed to the inflation spike.
In a recent CNBC interview, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the “spending was necessary” to help avoid the suffering of people losing their livelihoods and businesses.
“It may have contributed a little bit to the inflation,” Yellen said. “But by and large, the inflation was a supply-side phenomenon.”
The goods people wanted from China and other parts of the world faced huge supply chain problems, which pushed up prices, she said.
On Wednesday, new government inflation data showed core inflation — excluding food and energy prices — slowed in December, which helped prompt a stock market rally. Even with that progress, the Federal Reserve still has work to do to reach its 2% inflation target.