By now, everyone should know that in order to have qualified to receive the stimulus money that was sent out early on in this pandemic, the requirement was that you had filed your 2019 tax return. But timing was such that millions of Americans had not filed their 2019 returns when the pandemic started, so the IRS looked for a 2018 tax return.
When the pandemic began, I had several 2018 stragglers – folks that needed to send me a little more information to round out and complete their return, and there were also folks that needed to send me all of their information so that I could get started and begin preparing their return.
As the information arrived, I completed returns and submitted them, along with extensions for 2019 tax returns. We didn’t know it at the time, but the tax returns, extensions, and payments that were being submitted were just piling up in empty offices.
COVID had shut down the IRS along with all the other government and private offices and businesses across the country.
All summer long, people have been looking for stimulus money and tax refunds. Even taxpayers who filed their 2019 returns early, before COVID shut everything down, were forced to wait months for the IRS to return to work to issue their refunds.
By the time things began to turn around, and some government offices started to re-open, those of us that pay attention to such things had pretty much given up on any further stimulus money being sent out to those folks that had not filed one or both of the returns required to receive the payments.
So, to summarize my long-winded rant – as one who pays attention to such things, I feel it would be remiss to not mention that there now is a way for those who didn’t file or those who don’t usually file because they may not be required to file a tax return, to submit their information to be included, become registered, sign up, remind the IRS that they exist, or whatever you’d like to call it – for more information about the tool/program, click here,
And to access the form itself, click here.