When will your cut from $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package arrive? It depends

The Senate unanimously approved a $2 trillion coronavirus relief package lateWednesday, promising billions in assistance for individuals, families and businesses, but many Americans could be waiting awhile for their money.

Just how long exactly depends on a few things.

The White House wants to get payments out by April 6, but some experts doubt it can be done in that time frame, Fortune magazine reported, pointing to similar efforts from other stimulus packages in previous years. Realistically, it could take a month or more., finance and tax experts suggest.

“Historical precedent, plus the unprecedented crisis we’re in, leads me to believe May is the earliest the [Internal Revenue Service] would be able to start sending any checks,” Erica York of the Tax Foundation think tank told the outlet.

Payments are based on a number of unique factors, from income, to marital status, to number of children, and more.

For many Americans, the government already has that information on hand, but that’s not the case for millions of others, according to Bloomberg, and those are the individuals who may have a longer wait.

People that regularly receive funds from the government, such as Social Security recipients, can expect a relatively shorter waiting period, Bloomberg added.

Payments could be doled out much sooner to those who file their tax returns electronically, as the government can direct deposit their funds to their accounts, according to CNN.

A Republican aide told reporters Wednesday that the process of sending out physical, paper checks is significantly slower, “because the Bureau of Fiscal Service can only process and push out so many paper checks a week,” the outlet reported.

“It’s a pretty significant number but it would probably take -- I think they were estimating four or five weeks to get the balance out.”

This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 2:22 PM with the headline "When will your cut from $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package arrive? It depends."