The truth about reports of the highly-awaited IRS $1,390 stimulus checks

The IRS wants everyone to stop believing the hype. No, there are no new $1,390 stimulus checks coming this summer. Not for low-income earners. Not for middle-class families. Not for anyone.

For about a week, some posts online have been going around, claiming that the government had greenlit another round of payments. It didn’t take long for TikTok, Reddit, and random Twitter accounts to start spinning it as confirmed fact.

But sadly, there is no legislation in place right now that would allow the Treasury Department to send out fresh checks. The IRS doesn’t hand out free money unless Congress passes a bill that tells them to. And right now, no bill has passed. Not even close.

IRS confirms there are no new payments

An official from the IRS confirmed that “taxpayers will not receive new stimulus checks of any amount this summer.” The statement shut down the claim that $1,390 was on the way. These types of payments, known officially as economic impact payments, require federal laws, and right now there’s no such law.

What triggered the rumor? Missouri’s Republican Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill in July. It’s called the American Worker Rebate Act. The bill proposes that money collected from Trump’s tariffs should be paid back to the American people as tax rebates.

According to the text, the plan is to give at least $600 per person, and more if they have kids. It even suggests the rebate amount could go up if the tariff money is higher than expected. But again, that bill is just sitting there. It hasn’t been passed by the Senate or the House of Representatives.

Here’s how the numbers break down. People who make under $75,000 a year would qualify for the full amount. Those earning more would get less. As of Friday, the only thing that happened with this bill is it got read twice in the Senate on July 28. Then it went straight to the Committee on Finance, where it still sits.

Hawley says this is all about giving taxpayers what they’re owed. “Like President Trump proposed,” he wrote in a press release, “my legislation would allow hard-working Americans to benefit from the wealth that Trump’s tariffs are returning to this country.” He also said, “Americans deserve a tax rebate.”

IRS explains what money has actually gone out

Now, to clear things up: the only actual payments the IRS has been involved in this year are tied to 2021 tax returns. Earlier in the year, the agency announced it would send out about $2.4 billion in total to people who didn’t claim the Recovery Rebate Credit.

This was a refundable credit meant for folks who missed out on one or more of the COVID-19 stimulus checks. That payment maxed out at $1,400 per person.

But even that’s over. To be eligible, you had to file your 2021 tax return by April 15 of this year. If you didn’t, you’re out of luck. And no, there isn’t a new credit to claim. The IRS was very clear about that. The money they distributed wasn’t new stimulus, it was just leftover credit from an older program that was already passed by Congress years ago.

Let’s talk history. The IRS only sends out these types of payments when Congress tells them to. The checks that went out during the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t magically appear. They were approved through three separate bills: the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the COVID-related Tax Relief Act, and the American Rescue Plan Act. Each one spelled out how much was going out and who was getting it.

Same thing happened back in 2008 during the Great Recession. The law back then was called the Economic Stimulus Act, and that’s what allowed checks to go out to people during that financial crisis.

The Treasury Department is the one that actually delivers the money, and it does that through its branch, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. That team was formed in 2012 and helped with the massive payment rollout during COVID-19. But again, none of that machinery gets moving unless Congress gives the green light.

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