April 12, 2020 Covid-19 Update re Office Opening and Stimulus Payments

Good evening and Happy Easter.  We hope everyone had as good an Easter holiday as possible in this new normal.

Our office will reopen tomorrow, April 13th at 8:30 a.m.  As of right now, I’m not sure if we will be fully staffed due to the ongoing and increasing pandemic.  Please, I beg of you, if you call and we do not answer the phone, LEAVE A MESSAGE.  Do not hang up and call right back.  I cannot stress this enough.  If we don’t answer the phone it is because we are unable to at that time.  Thank you.

Now, on to the stimulus payments.  I have been monitoring the information all week, and the current consensus is if you did not have a direct deposit in 2019 (or 2018 if you have not yet filed 2019) you will not receive your payment by direct deposit.  This appears to be the case EVEN IF YOU HAD A DIRECT DEBIT for your tax payment.

I am basing this (as are other people I’ve been in touch with) on the fact that the IRS wording is : “if we have your direct deposit on file, your money will go into that account”.  Not, if we have your banking information, but direct deposit.  Now, I am not in charge of how things are run in Washington, nor does anyone ever consult me, but perhaps they should.  If they had, this issue would have been addressed immediately.

So, what can you do?  On April 17th the IRS will be launching a tool on their website for you to input your direct deposit information.  This is the link, but remember it is not up and running yet:  https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/economic-impact-payments

I will caution you: I expect this portal to crash as a lot of people will be trying to input their information on Friday so as to receive their stimulus payments as fast as possible.

Finally, if I find out that the IRS really meant “if we have your banking information” (and by find out I mean I get a stimulus payment in my bank account) I will let you know.  If you owed and paid by direct debit, and have already received notification of a pending stimulus deposit, let me know by sending an email to cheryl@pyestax.com.  Thank you.

Take care.