Millions of Americans will begin to receive their stimulus checks through a prepaid debit card, as part of the $2 trillion CARES Act, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced Monday.
The new method is called the Economic Impact Payment Card, according to a press release from the Treasury Department, and is a new way to give Americans the stimulus payments allocated by the CARES Act.
"Treasury and the [Internal Revenue Service] have been working with unprecedented speed to issue Economic Impact Payments to American families. Prepaid debit cards are secure, easy to use, and allow us to deliver Americans their money quickly. Recipients can immediately activate and use the cards safely," Mnuchin stated.
The Department of the Treasury reported that 140 million of the economic impact payments, widely known as stimulus checks, have already been sent out to Americans, totaling $239 billion in all. Most of the payments have been sent out through direct deposit information that tax filers provided to the IRS or through physical checks sent out to those for whom the IRS did not have direct deposit information.
"EIP Cards are being distributed to qualified individuals without bank information on file with the IRS, and whose tax return was processed by either the Andover or Austin IRS Service Center," the press release stated. Approximately four million cards will be issued from those two locations, though it was not immediately clear why those two processing centers are distributing stimulus funds in the new method. Newsweek has asked the Treasury for clarification and will update the story with a response.
The EIP Card is part of the Treasury's U.S. Debit Card program and is connected to MetaBank, the Treasury's financial agent, according to the press release. Directions for activating the debit card can be found on the card's website.
The new debit card will contain stimulus funds allocated to those qualifying Americans, which will have to be activated once received, as opposed to the direct deposits that automatically showed up in the bank account already on file with the IRS or given to the IRS for the stimulus payments. Those who receive the card will have the option to move funds to their personal bank accounts by using the card's website.
EIP card holders can use their cards to make purchases anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted, including in-store or online. Card holders can also remove money from their accounts surcharge-free at any in-network ATM, which can be found using the website's ATM locator.
Those how are receiving cards will have to wait until the cards arrive to their homes, provided the IRS has the correct address on file. Those who received direct deposits similarly needed to ensure the IRS had their updated direct deposit information to receive the funds.
Those who were eligible to receive funds include single tax filers who reported earning $75,000 or less on their most recent tax return on file, from either 2018 or 2019. Anyone who falls into that category is eligible to receive $1,200. Married couples who filed jointly and earned $150,000 or less are eligible to receive a total of $2,400. Americans with qualifying dependents could get $500 per dependent.
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