As of Wednesday April 15th, the IRS has launched its online Economic Impacts Payment portal and has begun making payments to individuals as stipulated under the CARES Act. This portal is designed to allow taxpayers to review the eligibility and status of their economic impact payment, confirm and update their address, and make any necessary changes to their banking information that will be used for deposit of the payment.
The IRS portal can be found at the following web address: https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/economic-impact-payments
Kahler Financial Group suggests that taxpayers log into the IRS portal (from a personal, trusted computer) to review their information. If eligible for a payment, it is important to confirm the banking information and the address on record is correct. If there is not any direct deposit information on file, clients may want to consider providing it as the IRS has indicated this will result in the fastest receipt of payment. Those electing not to use direct deposit could have to wait several months to receive payment by check.
Please note, at the time of this writing, many taxpayers were receiving a “Payment Status Not Available” message when attempting to review the portal. The IRS has indicated that there are a variety of reasons for receiving this message. If you receive this message, we suggest checking again a few days later.
As a reminder, generally, individual taxpayers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) under $75,000 and those married filing jointly with AGI under $150,000 in either the 2018 or 2019 tax year (dependent upon which tax return has been filed) will be eligible for a full payment. Generally, individuals with AGI in excess of $99,000 and married filing jointly with AGI in excess of $198,000 will not be eligible. Those in between may receive a partial payment.
Also note, scam attempts have already been reported regarding these payments. Remember, the IRS will not call, text nor visit you personally in respect to these payments. IRS correspondence arrives via USPS mail and the IRS.gov website. Do not provide personal information to anyone calling or texting you claiming to be an agent of the IRS. The FBI has released a notice with details of scams to be aware of.
