Why Haven’t I Received My Stimulus Check?

Approximately 80 million Americans received their stimulus check, also called the Economic Impact Payment, to assist them with paying bills during COVID-19 challenges. However, that leaves a lot of us who have not received our checks. I’m trying not to cave in to stimulus check anxiety. Nevertheless, I find myself wondering, “why haven’t I received my stimulus check, yet?” More importantly, when will I?

Reasons I Might Not Have Received My Stimulus Check

There are many reasons that people have not received their payments yet. I thought that I was covered because I filed both 2018 and 2019 taxes, and I was fairly certain that my direct deposit information was on file. However, it turns out that might not have been the case. Here are my best guesses for why I haven’t received the $1200 Economic Impact Payment, yet:

I filed my taxes using TurboTax.

It seems that even though they have my direct deposit information on file, it’s possible that the IRS itself doesn’t have that information. I don’t exactly understand why this is, but I’ve read several articles suggesting that this is a likely reason I haven’t received my deposit.

I only recently filed my 2019 taxes.

My research suggests that if you filed taxes only recently then perhaps they haven’t been processed, yet. This can delay the check. I filed just before April 15th. (Yes, I’m aware that tax filing extensions were automatic this year but I decided to get mine out of the way.) According to TurboTax, my filing was accepted. Nevertheless, perhaps it hasn’t been processed, yet. This makes me wonder: “if I hadn’t filed my taxes, would I have received my stimulus check?”

There’s a glitch in the system.

When I tried to use the IRS “Get My Payment” tool to figure out why I hadn’t received my payment, I ran into some problems. First, the system was overwhelmed, because of course millions of other people are wondering the same thing that I am. Second, when I got in, it said that they couldn’t determine my eligibility.

This could be because of the above two reasons. Or it might just be a glitch in the system. I imagine that they are doing their best to keep the system up and running as accurately as possible. Nevertheless, the sheer number of people accessing a system that was put into place so rapidly means that there are glitches.

Other Reasons People Haven’t Received Checks

Here are some of the other reasons that people might not have gotten their payments, yet, although they don’t apply to me:

• Earning enough money to not qualify for the check
• Failure to file taxes in the past two years
• Receiving social security or other assistance; those checks are coming soon
• The system couldn’t verify your identity

What I’m Doing To Get My Stimulus Check

Right now I’m just keeping an eye on things. There are still new payments coming soon. Many of these will be mailed as paper checks instead of going through direct deposit. I’m going to hold off, avoid anxiety about the situation, and wait to see what happens. A lot of people are in the same boat. We’ll figure this out.

What are you doing with your stimulus payment if you already received one?