The Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday that close to 700,000 Americans could receive a “plus-up” stimulus payment this week due to their tax returns, according to CNBC.
What is a ‘plus-up’ payment?
“Plus-up” payments will be sent to taxpayers who filed their 2020 tax returns and made less than they did based on their 2019 returns, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
- The stimulus checks sent out earlier this year were based on your most recent tax returns. For some, that included their 2020 tax returns. Others were based on 2019 tax returns.
- So you could receive one of those payments if you made less in 2020 than you did in 2019.
You may have received a ‘plus-up’ payment
The IRS said it had already started sending “plus-up” payments earlier in April. The IRS will continue to send out these payments as people continue to submit their tax returns for 2020, CNBC reports.
Why do ‘plus-up’ payments exist?
The Washington Post reports that Congress added the “plus-up payment” to President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief plan to help the IRS deal with the backlog of tax returns.
- “Aware of the backlog at the IRS, Congress gave the agency the ability during this stimulus relief round to circle back and essentially top off people who were shortchanged because their tax situation changed in 2020,” according to The Washington Post.