Federal Agencies Send Out 5th Batch of Stimulus Checks Worth $3.4 Billion

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building is seen in Washington on Feb. 19, 2014. Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

The IRS said on April 14 that federal agencies are in the midst of sending out a fifth batch of stimulus checks, amounting to nearly 2 million payments worth more than $3.4 billion, with eligible recipients likely to see the funds arriving in their bank accounts starting April 14.

The IRS, Department of the Treasury, and Bureau of the Fiscal Service jointly began processing the latest batch of payments on April 9, with an official payment date of April 14, the tax agency said in a statement.

The fifth batch includes nearly 1.2 million direct deposit payments, and around 800,000 paper checks. The IRS earlier urged people to monitor their mail carefully as some people had thrown out checks under previous stimulus rounds thinking they were junk mail or scams.

The bulk of the payments under this round went out to people who filed a 2020 tax return, including nearly 850,000 checks to those for whom the IRS didn’t have information on file to send a payment to until they filed a tax return.

This batch also includes around 700,000 “plus-up” payments to people who already received stimulus checks based on their 2019 tax returns, but whose 2020 tax returns made them eligible for a new or larger payment.

It also includes more than 320,000 payments to Veterans Affairs beneficiaries who receive compensation and pension benefit payments but who don’t normally file a tax return, as well as 72,000 checks to Social Security beneficiaries who didn’t file tax returns for the past two years.

The agencies will continue to send payments on a weekly basis to eligible individuals for whom the IRS previously did not have information to issue a payment but who recently filed a tax return, and to people who qualify for “plus-up” payments based on their 2020 tax returns.

The IRS urged federal benefits recipients who don’t normally file tax returns to file a 2020 return so as to provide the agency with information it needs to send them an additional payment for qualifying dependents.

Also, people who don’t receive federal benefits and don’t normally file tax returns are also urged to file a 2020 tax return, as they may be eligible for a payment.

If, for some reason, eligible recipients don’t receive a check at all under the American Rescue Plan round of economic impact payments, then they can claim the stimulus money that they should have received as a Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 income tax return, which won’t be filed until next year.

The fifth batch of payments brings the total disbursed so far up to around 159 million payments, with a total value of more than $376 billion, the IRS said.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan authorizes individuals earning less than $75,000 per year—and married joint filers making less than $150,000—to receive the full $1,400 payment. The checks then ramp down to zero for individuals earning $80,000 or above and for joint filers making $160,000 or more.