iStock/ersinkisacik (NEW YORK) — Several Americans across the country have reportedly received their stimulus checks to assist with mortgage payments and other fiscal responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A senior Treasury official told ABC News, “We can confirm that payments are beginning to arrive in some Americans’ accounts. Treasury and the IRS have worked around the clock to get fast and direct economic assistance to hardworking Americans.”
The official continued, “During the 2008-2009 financial crisis, it took the government several months before the first stimulus payments were issued to the American people. This administration has done it in just two weeks.”
Those working in the Treasury department are also working to process Social Security payments and assist retirees who did not file a tax return for the past two years.
The Treasury department is putting special focus on assisting “veterans, disabled, and other vulnerable populations.”
The official added that the first round of payments will go toward Americans who filed their 2018 and 2019 tax returns, which should be sent out by April 15.
For those who have not filed a tax return, the Treasury department is urging those to update their information on the official IRS website.
ABC News recently obtained a House Democratic memo regarding the stimulus checks, where it is believed that millions of Americans will have to wait months before receiving federal relief.
Over 16 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
House Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee identified that stimulus checks will be delivered via direct deposit to roughly 60 million Americans.
However, for those who did not file a tax return and didn’t provide banking information to the IRS may have to wait longer — with House Democrats estimating that paper stimulus checks will be mailed out three weeks after the first round of direct deposits.
The IRS will issue five million paper checks a week, meaning some Americans may be waiting up to 20 weeks to receive relief.
Those with the lowest incomes will see stimulus checks first, according to the memo.
Janet Holzblatt of the Tax Policy Center told ABC News, “It generally takes several months for the IRS to develop and test the programming systems to determine the rebate amounts — a task which is complicated by the ongoing filing season, and the pressures processing 2019 tax returns places on the existing computer capacities…This is uncharted waters — similar types of rebates were not paid in the midst of the filing season.”
