More than a million Americans have been told by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that they still have time to apply for the $1,400 stimulus checks that are linked to the Recovery Rebate Credit (RRC) of 2021. The deadline is April 15.
The payment is part of the third round of Covid-19 economic impact checks. People who did not get the full amount and have not yet filed their 2021 tax return can still get it.
The $1,400 payment, which was approved in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan, was meant to help people who were hurt by the pandemic.
Newsweek said that while most eligible recipients got their payments automatically, a lot of them did not because they made mistakes on their paperwork or did not know about the RRC.
People who work for the IRS say that a lot of people probably did not get the payment because they did not understand the rules or thought they were not supposed to file.
Some people may have thought they were not eligible for stimulus aid because they only got income that was not taxed, like Social Security benefits.
The IRS says that payments worth a total of about $2.4 billion will be sent.
What is the eligibility and deadline?
The IRS found that about a million taxpayers were eligible for the stimulus check by looking at their 2021 tax returns and seeing that the RCC field was left blank or declared $0.
Those taxpayers now get automatic payments by mail or direct deposit. The amount varies based on several factors and can go up to $1,400.
Some people may lose the $1,400 payment, though, because they never filed a 2021 tax return. To get the credit, they must file their 2021 tax return by April 15, 2022.
On the IRS website, some people can file their taxes for free. Even if a person had little or no income in 2021, the IRS has made it clear that they can still claim the credit. This is especially important for people with low incomes or who do not usually file tax returns.
People who want to file must have a valid Social Security number and not have been claimed as dependents on someone else’s tax return.
