LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Americans who have not received their stimulus payments may not be receiving their second payment automatically, according to the IRS.
The IRS said people who receive the message "Payment Status #2 - Not Available" when checking their status of their stimulus check on the IRS Get My Payment tool will have to wait until filing their 2020 taxes to claim the Recovery Rebate Credit.
"We all expected it to be here already this week," Dreama Williams, one of many waiting on the payment, said. "You go and check your payment status and it says, 'Not available.'"
Williams said she was looking forward to getting her $600 payment, calling it a sigh of relief when she learned about it in December. She said she lost her job last year because of the pandemic and needed the extra help.
"My unemployment is cut off as well, waiting on all that, so it's very stressful," she said. "Just like so many other people, rent's due, food on the table - I was really depending on it. And now I feel helpless."
But the IRS said part of the delay could be due to the agency depositing the economic impact payments to accounts that no longer exist or have been closed. Users who have filed their taxes with TurboTax, including Williams, have reported issues of having their payments deposited into unknown account numbers.
In a series of tweets, TurboTax, which is an Intuit company, wrote, "Stimulus payments are determined & issued by the IRS, not by TurboTax. We do not have direct information about your stimulus payment."
"I just really wish they fix the problem because there are so many people that need help," Williams said.
TurboTax later emailed customers saying they were working toward a solution with the IRS and the Treasury and expected that the error would be corrected "within days."
Customers with H&R Block had also reported similar issues but the company announced Monday it would be sending the misguided payments into its customers’ accounts.
Contact reporter Dennis Ting at dting@whas11.com. Follow him on Twitter (@DennisJTing) and Facebook.
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