Another wave of $1,400 stimulus payments rolling out this week — and this time, many are coming as paper checks or pre-paid debit cards, the Internal Revenue Service announced Monday.
The upcoming second batch follows the initial distribution of approximately 90 million direct payments last week.
For payments coming via direct deposit in this second batch, Wednesday, March 24 marks the official payment date. Before that point, a payment might appear in a bank account as pending or provisional, the IRS noted. The processing on this wave of payments began Friday, the agency said.
But what’s important to know about this wave is that more are coming this time as actual checks and debit cards.
IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said “we urge people to carefully watch their mail for a check or debit card in the coming weeks.”
If anyone gets their tax refund with a paper check, the IRS noted “this paper check will look similar, but will be labeled as an ‘Economic Impact Payment.’”
When the IRS began sending out pre-paid debit cards for the initial, $1,200 round of payments last year, some people accidently threw them out thinking they were junk mail.
As a heads-up, Monday’s announcement said, “the [economic impact payment] card will come in a white envelope prominently displaying the seal of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.”
The IRS says it plans to churn out the remaining stimulus payments on a weekly basis.
The IRS and Treasury Department’s announcement did not break down how many payments are going out in this upcoming installment of the third-round payments, and how many of those are debit cards and paper checks.
The $1,400 stimulus checks that have hit bank accounts are already making an impact. Investors last week pumped a record $56.8 billion into U.S. stock market mutual funds. The previous week, they poured in $16.83 billion, according to BofA Global Research.
