When I first started thinking about posting this, I really wanted to say some mean things about our government. Honestly, I still think what I wanted to say, but I will refrain. Instead, I wanted to post this just in case any of you were planning out your stimulus check not know what was really was going to happen with it, as did my husband and I.
We were scheduled, according to the schedule on irs.gov to receive a direct deposit of our stimulus check May 9th. On May 8th I had a co-worker tell me that his girlfriend had not received her’s when she was scheduled to. He did some research and found on irs.gov that if you chose to pay your tax fees with your tax refund, you will not get the stimulus check direct deposited. You will get it mailed to you on the paper check schedule. I looked up the information for myself. I was pretty upset b/c nothing in my online tax service informed me of this, even though it had given me other information regarding my stimulus check throughout the process. On May 16th, one full week after we should have received our check, we received an email from our online tax service that had this paragraph in it:
“Recently, you may have received a letter from the IRS advising you when to expect your Economic Stimulus Payment (rebate). That IRS letter may have inadvertently left off some important information. Taxpayers who chose to have their tax preparation fees deducted from their federal tax refund will receive their tax rebate in the mail, not via direct deposit.”
Notice the word inadvertently. Just to clarify (as I wanted to for myself) inadvertently is defined by dictionary.com as:
1. unintentional
2. not attentive; heedless
3. of, pertaining to, or characterized by lack of attention.
Honestly, I was pretty upset about that because we are going on vacation next week and we (more me than Tim) were kind of counting on that check as some of our spending money. Please know that I am in no way blaming the government for us not saving better for vacation. It would have just been nice to know before hand.
So, I made my peace with that and just knew we would be receiving the check when we got back from vacation.
Last night my mom called me and told me that two of the girls that she works with DID NOT receive a check because they had student loans. Again, I got ticked off. I immediately called my friend Sharon and asked her to look it up for me (b/c we do not have internet at home yet).
She found this on irs.gov:
“Some taxpayers may receive smaller economic stimulus payments than they anticipated. By law, the stimulus payments are offset to satisfy past-due taxes, student loans, child support and certain other debts.”
So, from what I understand, the stimulus check could (I say could because we have not yet hit the date we are supposed to receive our’s, so I do not know for sure if this will happen to us) go towards paying off our student loans. While I am thankful that we are getting the money at all, I have to say that I really would have liked the option of using the money on needs that we have now (really I am not talking about vacation here, rather the repairs we need to make on BOTH of our vehicles) and continue making the required payments, on time, to pay back my student loans.
What do you all think? Has any one already gone through all of this and know this is what is going to happen, or am I wrong?
**Update: I have spoken to a couple of people who say they have student loans and have still gotten their checks. There is still hope for us yet! (P/S: not really putting my hope in money, there was much sarcasm in that sentence).**
**And another Update: We got our stimulus check!! So there is still hope for those of you who have not gotten your’s yet!!
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