If you were waiting for a Stimulus Check from the IRS to cover the 2021 Recovery Rebate Credit and haven’t received it yet, there’s bad news: you’re not going to.
In December 2024, the United States Internal Revenue Service announced that it would be distributing Stimulus Checks of up to $1,400 to taxpayers who missed an earlier funding program. Certain criteria had to be met to be eligible for the funds, which you can check below to find out why you were missed in this round of payments.
The U.S. Treasury and IRS distributed billions in funding under COVID-19 conditions
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the U.S. Treasury and IRS made funding available to citizens to ease the financial crisis during 2020 and 2021. Stimulus Checks were distributed under the Economic Impact Payments program and several refunds, rebates, and credits were made available by the IRS as well.
The three Stimulus Checks were:
- CARES Act: Funding of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child under 17 was made available to eligible Americans under the CARES Act in March 2020.
- Consolidated Appropriations Act: $600 for each qualifying adult and child was claimable from December 2020.
- American Rescue Plan: The amount was $1,400 for adults and dependents (including adult dependents) and it was made available from March 2021.
The payments distributed in early 2025 had to do with the third Stimulus Check.
The IRS distributed $2.4 billion to Americans who missed out earlier
Around one million eligible taxpayers didn’t claim their Recovery Rebate Credit when they submitted their tax returns in the 2022 tax season for the 2021 fiscal year.
In December, the Internal Revenue Service reported that it would be paying out about $2.4 billion in Stimulus Checks to taxpayers who didn’t claim the credit even though they were eligible. The amount was up to $1,400 per person, depending on whether they qualified under the broad criteria.
The Internal Revenue Service discovered after reviewing internal data that a huge number of taxpayers who actually qualified for the Recovery Rebate Credit in 2021 neglected to claim it.
IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel clarified to the media:
“Looking at our internal data, we realized that one million taxpayers overlooked claiming this complex credit when they were actually eligible.”
By the end of January 2025, all outstanding rebate credits had been paid out via an automatic system starting in December 2024, meaning there was no application process that anyone had to go through. Eligible taxpayers would also have received correspondence notifying them of the payment. This means that anyone who did not receive a payout and notification can assume that they were not eligible under the IRS’s criteria.
What were the eligibility criteria for the Recovery Rebate Credit?
The criteria to be eligible for the third Stimulus Check under the American Rescue plan in March 2021 were quite basic:
- Individuals had to earn $75,000 or less to qualify for the full rebate credit amount of $1,400 per adult or dependent. Those who earned more than this in the 2021 fiscal year would receive incrementally less based on an earnings scale.
- The income limit for couples who filed jointly to qualify for the full amount was exactly double at $150,000 and the earnings scale was once again applied for those who earned more.
The Recovery Rebate Credit was put in place for those people who didn’t receive all or some of the Stimulus Checks when they were issued during the pandemic when they were in fact eligible. Each of the stimulus payments had its own separate, but similar, criteria. So, unfortunately, if you were missed out in this round, it’s most likely because you were paid out all you were due when the Stimulus Checks were originally issued, or you earned above the maximum income threshold.
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