Many in the Central Valley will have to wait for their stimulus payments. Here’s why
It’s likely to take longer for a lot of people in Sacramento, Fresno, Modesto, Visalia and some other California cities to get their economic stimulus money.
The cities are among the highest in the country among major metropolitan areas that received recent income tax refunds by paper check, says a new survey from MagnifyMoney, a money management website that looked at 2018 tax filing season data.
Those who got paper refund checks are more likely to get their new stimulus checks mailed rather than directly deposited.
That could mean a wait of several weeks and even months. “Taxpayers in California are more likely to be left waiting for their stimulus checks,” MagnifyMoney reported, though the internal Revenue Service is expected to set up an online portal as soon as this week that will allow people to provide their bank account information, expediting the stimulus payment.
Visalia topped the list of paper refund check recipients.. The survey reported 46,330 refund checks there in 2018, which meant 25.9 percent of the refunds were not sent by direct deposit.
Second was Fresno, where 81,650 refund checks were issued, or 23.4 percent of city residents’ refunds.
San Francisco was fourth, at 22.6%, followed by Modesto, at 22.2 percent.
Sacramento ranked 10th, with 168,020 refund checks accounting for 20.1 percent. Los Angeles, at 20 percent, was 12th.
Oklahoma City and Tulsa had the lowest percentages of refund checks issued..
“The higher ranking of Sacramento, Fresno, and Modesto could possibly be attributed to the fact that the Central Valley has a higher Hispanic immigrant population that is less likely to have a bank account registered with the IRS,” said Chris Horymski, research analyst at MagnifyMoney.
The government began depositing stimulus payments this week to eligible taxpayers whose bank account information is on file with the IRS.
Individuals who earned less than $75,000 and couples who made less than $150,000 on their latest tax return are eligible to get $1,200 per adult and $500 per dependent child. The amounts phase out and are unavailable to individuals who made $99,000 and joint filers who earned $198,000.
Eligibility is based on 2018 adjusted gross income unless a 2019 return has been filed. If someone does not qualify based on either year’s earnings, but will because their income plunged this year, they will get a credit when they file their 2020 returns next year.
Most people will have the stimulus money automatically deposited, but those expecting a paper check will have to wait until the federal government mails out the payments, a process that is not expected to start until later this month.
The mailing will be a gradual rollout. People in the lowest income brackets will get their money first.
Each week higher income earners will get checks, until the last get their rebate, probably in mid-September. The IRS expects to send out about 5 million checks each week.
What could expedite the process is a new website, Get My Payment, that the Treasury Department plans to unveil later this week and is designed to make it easier for people to send their bank deposit information to the government.
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