Waiting patiently for your coronavirus relief payment from the government? Even if you know payments will be sent out soon, you might still have questions about how you’ll get your money—especially if you don’t typically file taxes, and most especially if you don’t usually file taxes, but you do have kids at home. If you’re the guardian for a child 16 or younger, that $500 per kid payment could go a long way toward cover the expenses of caring for them during this turbulent time.
If you receive Social Security benefits, including Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), you don’t have to do anything to get your $1,200 payment; the IRS will communicate with Social Security to verify your benefit level and that you should receive a payment automatically.
If you have qualifying children at home, the IRS says you will be able to get the $500 per child payment. However, it has not yet specified what you’ll have to do in order to notify the IRS that you’re a guardian and are therefore entitled to the additional relief funds.
It can be frustrating to not know what you’re supposed to do or when you’re supposed to do it. The best way to get more information, once it’s available, is to check the IRS economic impact payment information center. If you visit the page now, you’ll see a few different drop-down fields offering more information and answering some common questions. If you scroll to the bottom of that page, you’ll also see a box that shows the last time the page was updated. Keep checking this date to know whether or not additional instructions are likely to be available.
The IRS will also send a letter by mail within 15 days of issuing your payment. It’ll include information for what to do if you didn’t actually receive your money or if there’s a problem with your payment.
I’ll also update this post as soon as the IRS provides more details on how to submit your information, so stay tuned for more info.