I filed my tax return shortly before the first round of payments. My tax refund and my stimulus payment went in on the same day, $1,200 for me and $500 each for my younger two kids for a total of $2,200 payment which matched up with what I had read. I knew my 19 year old wouldn’t be getting one based on information I had read.
Fast forward to today, there were two $1,200 payments into my bank account from the treasury. I called the bank and they looked and the payments showed they were for my 2 younger kids(14 & 12). I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that they draw a check off their father who is on disability, so they would be in the social security payment system. However I thought only adults got $1,200 not to mention that I already received the expected $500 for each one. I don’t want to run into problems with the government, but I don’t have the time or patience to spend hours on hold trying to find out what is going on.
Is there anyone here that knows anything about this situation, either through personal experience or through expert knowledge?
I think your reasoning is correct, that the new payments are based off SS dependent payments.
Originally they said they weren’t going to claw back overpayments, but now there is chatter that they might. I would just let it sit there for a while.
What’s the payer name or description in your bank’s line item listing of the transaction, and how does it compare to other payments? Husband just got a payout of late MIL’s final pension payment from two years ago, and we had already gotten all the stimulus money we were entitled to. We didn’t know what on earth it was until he got on the phone with SSA this morning – and even then, they only got to the bottom of it after checking under MIL’s SSN and not just husband’s.
If there’s a letter, and my understanding is there should be, it may lag two weeks or so behind the payment.
ETA agree heartily with @twoinanddone about letting it sit while this all shakes out.
The names that the bank gave me for the payments were those of my two youngest children. Each one draws just over $400 per month(it was less until my oldest son graduated high school and it was split between 2 instead of 3), so nothing matches up to $1,200. I just didn’t understand why the amounts were $1,200 since that amount is supposedly only for adults. It would make sense if the first time was due to my tax return and this was due to social security records, but I would have expected it to be $500 each. I guess I will just wait a while and see what happens, I would just put it back for emergencies any way, not like I would go out and spend it.
@HeartofDixie Apparently you aren’t the only one. If you haven’t done this already, a little googling turned up several stories of people with children who receive disability checks (because a parent receives disability) also received $1200 payments for each child. Sometimes the advice is to send the money back to the IRS, but I don’t see the harm in hanging on to it for a while, but I definitely would not spend it. Who knows, they might tell you to keep it. The purpose of the program is to stimulate the economy.