Stimulus Check 2025 Update: IRS Sending Final Payments—Are You Eligible?: Stimulus checks were a fact of life in U.S. politics during a brief period in 2020 and 2021. Both the first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration sent out stimulus checks to the majority of Americans at the height of the pandemic in a bid to keep the economy going during and after the shutdowns.
The payments succeeded in avoiding a deep recession, although that, and other pandemic measures, did help lead the rising inflation that helped end the Biden presidency while persisting in the early going of the second Trump era.
After those checks from the early Biden era, the federal government stopped sending further stimulus checks, and while some state governments offered stimulus check schemes of their own, the stimulus check era appears to have reached its end, at least until there’s another recession.
As of now, Congress is debating what financial package to pass, with the main question of how deep the tax cuts and spending cuts will go; stimulus checks are not part of the equation in those talks.
Stimulus Check 2025: What’s Happening Now?
There is one exception, however. In December, the IRS announced that payments would go out to about 1 million people who did not claim the 2021 Recovery Rebate Credit on their tax return that year.
The checks were to arrive, “in most cases,” by the end of January, the IRS said at the time, with the maximum amount $1,400 per individual. However, those who hadn’t filed a 2021 tax return could still do so and qualify for the payment, with the deadline for that April 15 of this year.
Things Might Get Harder at the IRS
There are reasons to believe that, shortly, things will get less functional at the IRS.
During the Biden Administration, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS $80 billion in new funding for an agency that had been underfunded and understaffed for many years. According to one study, the IRS “collected more than $1.1 billion from 1,600 wealthy Americans with known but unpaid tax debts in the 2024 fiscal year, up from just $38 million a year earlier.”
However, this new funding led to a new Republican talking point, that the funding had enabled the hiring of an “army” of “87,000 new IRS agents.” This was exaggerated, as it was based on one Treasury Department study from years earlier, which projected that the the IRS would be able to hire that number of new people — not all of them agents — over a years-long period.
Beyond Stimulus Checks: An Ill-Timed Layoff
And now, significant cuts are coming to the IRS in the era of DOGE.
According to the AP, the IRS plays to lay off thousands of probationary workers just as tax season approaches. Another report said that IRS workers who are involved in tax season are not permitted to accept the offered buyout for government workers until after tax season is over.
Rather than “government efficiency,” it would appear that the most likely consequence to firing large numbers of IRS employees is that the agency will do less enforcement, take in less revenue, and take much longer to distribute refunds to taxpayers.
President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the 2019 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. By Gage Skidmore.
Meanwhile, ABC News reported this week that DOGE is seeking access to the IRS’s Integrated Data Retrieval System, which retains millions of taxpayers’ personal tax information.
As of the weekend, access to the system had not been granted.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter
