If you haven’t gotten your $1200 stimulus check, read this!


Yesterday I discovered that people who didn’t get refunds on their most recent tax return don’t seem to be getting the direct deposits, even if their banking info is on file. The IRS does not assume the account you use for making payments is the account they should direct deposit into.

There are three solutions:

1.) Ignore this. If your income is over $99K as a single person, $136.5K as Single Filing as Head of Household or over $198K as Married Filing Joint, you won’t get an advance on this 2020 tax credit anyway.

You also won’t get it if your exemption was claimed on someone else’s return (because, for example, you’re a student), or you or someone on your tax return doesn’t have a social security number (because, for example, your spouse is an immigrant).

2.) Wait. A check will probably come in the mail at some point, and if not, you’ll get another crack at it on the 2020 return we file in the spring of ’21.

3.) Go use non-filer’s info to give them your payment info This is the Intuit-based system that seems to be accepting payment info, whereas the IRS webtool doesn’t seem to work. I’ll give you step by step directions for that, below.

A.) You have to create a login with an email and a cellphone and you need to go confirm the email address and get a PIN for a cellphone.

B.) You need to have the NEW bank routing info and bank account. NOTE if we were using the 2018 return for the OTHER data, watch to make sure you have the correct bank on hand. A check is perfect: routing numbers are the nine digits on the left, account numbers are usually the next digits that come before the check number.

C.) You need to know the AGI (line 7) from the most recently filed tax return. My people have paper copies, but they’re also in Sharefile. If you filed separately last year there’s a place to enter both of your AGIs, otherwise, joint just goes under “Taxpayer”.

D.) You need to know the PIN you used to sign your most recently filed tax return. (It’s printed on Form 8879, commonly known as the “efile authorization, but everyone in my office knows how we calculated it so text or email anyone and we can tell you the PIN if we prepared your return.)

E.) You need to have driver’s licenses or state IDs on hand.

F.) You need to know the social security numbers and dates of birth.

G.) If there’s an identity theft PIN you’ll need that, too.

It went pretty smoothly once I went and confirmed the email account was good, so take the time in step A to go find your email and click to verify it.