The Internal Revenue Service will make one last attempt to reach the 9 million Americans who are eligible to receive a coronavirus relief stimulus check but never claimed it.
NBC News reports that the IRS will send out letters later this month to people who didn’t file federal taxes for 2018 or 2019 but meet the income criteria to receive the stimulus money under the CARES Act.
"The good news is that millions of Americans who never received the COVID-19-related stimulus funds have another chance to get their fair share of this distribution," Jack Gillis, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America, told NBC News. "The bad news is that the IRS needs to find you."
People who already filed taxes, seniors, veterans, and disabled people received their stimulus checks first. Some of the people eligible for the payment don’t file taxes or receive federal benefits, which means the IRS doesn’t have a way to get the money to them.
According to NBC News, some of the people who didn’t receive their stimulus checks are among the poorest Americans. Their incomes fall under the threshold required to file taxes, which is $12,200 for single filers under the age of 65.
To alert people who have not claimed their checks, the IRS will send out a letter beginning on Sept. 24. Eligible individuals can get payments of up to $1,200, and married couples can get up to $2,400. Parents of minor children may qualify for an additional $500 for each child.
Senior director of federal consumer programs at the nonprofit Public Interest Research Group Ed Mierzwinski told NBC News that people are running out of time to claim their money and hopes the deadline is extended.
The deadline to fill out the form for eligible non-filers is Oct. 15. The deadline for non-filers with kids to claim the additional $500 child payment is Sept. 30.
Chuck Marr, senior director of federal tax policy for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told NBC News that the people who haven’t claimed their stimulus are “the hardest to reach.”
“This money means more to them than to anybody else,” he said, noting that many of them are enrolled in state-administered programs like food stamps and Medicaid but don’t get federal benefits.
“They struggle during good times, but now we’re in the middle of a global pandemic,” he said.
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