UPDATE: On April 15 the Treasury department finally announced that it would not require SSI recipients to take extra steps to receive the $1200 stimulus payment. If you have NOT already filed a return or submitted the short form reference in the post below, you should not have to do anything at this point to receive the $1200 stimulus payment for any SSI recipient. It appears that although the payments will be coming from the IRS, not the SSA, they will be made in whatever manner SSI benefits are received – direct deposit, DirectExpress benefits card, or paper check. Right now they are expected to go out in early May.
Most adults who receive SSI benefits are entitled to the $1200 stimulus payments passed by the US Congress. But there are some details you need to know.
Adults (anyone age 18 or older) who receive SSI benefits and are NOT claimed as a dependent on anyone else’s tax return are entitled to the $1200 payment.
The payment will NOT be counted as income to the recipient, and so will NOT affect the monthly benefit.
The payment will NOT be counted as an asset for 12 months, so if your SSI recipient has some money saved and this payment would put them over the $2000 asset limit, you will have 12 months to spend the money before it affects the monthly benefit.
SSI recipients will NOT get these payments automatically. Because of a glitch in the way the legislation was written, and despite urging by disability groups and many legislators for the Treasury Department to fix this oversight, anyone who gets SSI and did not file a tax return in either 2018 or 2019 – which is almost all SSI recipients – will need to file a simplified information form with the IRS in order to get their payment.
If you have already filed a 2019 tax return for your adult child, you do not need to take this additional step.
If you have SSI payments direct deposited to a bank account, the stimulus payment can be sent to the same account. You can also direct the payment into any other bank account that is in the name of the SSI recipient.
If you receive paper checks, you can receive the stimulus payment by paper check.
Unfortunately, if SSI payments are made to a benefits debit card, there is currently no information on how the stimulus payment can be made to that card account. You will have to ask for a paper check if there is no other bank account in the SSI recipient’s name. This obviously will present a problem on how to get that check cashed. One option would be to go ahead and open an ABLE account if that is something you have been considering but haven’t gotten around to yet.
Another option would be to do a third party endorsement of the check to yourself (a parent or other responsible adult) and deposit it into your own account. You do this by having the check endorsed as thus: “Pay to the order of (parent or other), signature of payee (person the check is made out to).” Then when you deposit it into your own account you sign as you would normally endorse a check. But BE ADVISED that some banks will not accept third party endorsements, so check with your bank before you try this.
The IRS registration form is here.
Stay safe. Stay sane.