While the United States government is considering a second round of stimulus checks, some Americans still haven’t gotten their first stimulus check. Find out how to report your missing stimulus check to the IRS, below.
Check Your Eligibility
Firstly, you’ll need to check if you’re eligible for a stimulus check by your most recently filed tax return. The main factor to determine your qualification is being a citizen of the United States that earned less than $99,000 a year. If you are a married couple, you had to earn less than $198,000 a year. If you’re a single person with one dependent or more and earned less than $146,500 a year who also files taxes for the household.
Secondly, for parents that have children that are 16-years-old or under, you may be eligible to receive $500 per child up to three kids.
Use the IRS “Get My Payment” Tool
Finally, after you determine your eligibility, you’ll want to login to the IRS’ “Get My Payment” portal. You’ll be able to track your check if they are sending you one. It is entirely possible that it is not lost and instead the IRS has not processed your check just yet.
You may get a message from the website that asks for more information, which could be the reason why your check hasn’t arrived. Be sure to fill in the missing information so you can receive your check.
Potential Errors
CNET reported that one of the issues could be the fact that you haven’t filed a form. If you had a gross income under $12,200 for a single person or $24,400 as a married couple and did not file a tax return in 2018 or 2019, you’ll have to submit more information.
For those who closed their bank account that they previously held and that the IRS has on file, that could be your issue. If this happens, the IRS can send you a pre-paid debit card or check.
If you owe any kind of child support, the government intercepted the stimulus check.
Additionally, you may have misplaced or thrown out the stimulus check thinking it was a spam letter.
Calling the IRS By Phone
Finally, if you’ve tried all of the above steps, your best bet would be to contact the IRS by telephone. You should be warned that your wait time may be extremely long due to the sheer call volume number. Before you make the call, you’ll want to have all of your documents and information readily available.
There are two separate phone numbers to reach the IRS at. For those people who have already received a stimulus check confirmation letter, call 800-919-9835. For anyone else, use 800-829-1040.
