This May 8, 2008, file photo shows blank checks on an idle press at the Philadelphia Regional Financial Center, which disburses payments on behalf of federal agencies, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have launched a website for Americans who didn’t file their taxes for 2018 or 2019 to submit their bank account information so they can receive their coronavirus stimulus check.
The website, created in partnership with TurboTax parent Intuit, requests full names and social security numbers of the individual as well as spouses and dependents, mailing addresses and bank account and routing numbers.
The IRS is also developing a separate online portal for those who filed their taxes but didn’t provide bank account information, which it plans to launch later in April. It will also allow users to track the status of their payment.
Social Security recipients who didn’t file a tax return in 2018 or 2019 need not take additional action as their payment will be made in the same way they receive their social security payments.
The Treasury began making promises at the beginning of the month that the “overwhelming majority of eligible Americans” would receive their stimulus checks within three weeks.
Still, the solution excludes the 8.4 million U.S. households, including 14.1 million adults, who don’t have bank accounts. For them, it could take weeks or even months for a paper check to arrive in the mail. Aaron Klein, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, suggests the government could still be looking at sending 70 million paper checks.
The IRS received 156 million tax returns last year and issued refunds to about 112 million. Some 92 million received those refunds by direct deposit.
The new IRS portal also fails to account for the 21 million tax filers from last year that received a refund by direct deposit but didn’t provide their own bank account information to receive it, instead, creating a temporary bank account called a Refund Anticipation Check.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
