Stimulus Payment for pay by refund clients

[Jevanscpa08]

I've been looking around for answers for my clients, but I haven't found an answer. Does anyone know how pay-by-refund clients will receive their stimulus payments?

[RollTide68]

I received an email from The Tax Payer Group saying they were in coordination with the IRS to get that data to them.

Wouldn't hold my breath on it though.

[Accountant-Man]

I don't understand the question. What does pay by refund have to do with having a bank account for the refund money on normally filed returns? Unless the fee is the exact same amount as the refund, the rest of the refund goes into their bank account, doesn't it? 

And isn't that where the government will put their stimulus money?

[Jevanscpa08]

I know that when the returns are filed the clients banking information is not on the return. There’s a dummy account that routes the banking information to the banking institution for which ever service I’m using (Ex. TPG). Unless there’s another way to convey that information I thought that was how it worked.

[BobKamman · Accepted solution]

Long answer, here:

https://procedurallytaxing.com/how-will-i-get-my-cares-stimulus-payment-if-my-preparer-paid-my-refun...

Short answer:

Unfortunately, we simply don’t know how the IRS is handling this issue.

[BobKamman]

This was added as a comment to the blog I referenced yesterday:

This afternoon Chi Chi Wu from the National Consumer Law Center who follows issues like these closely posted the following message on the ABA Pro Bono and Tax Clinics listserv: “So I just got this update unofficially – It looks like the IRS will be able to make direct deposits of stimulus funds for a significant percentage of taxpayers who received RACs or RALs for 2018/2019. Apparently, returns with a RAC/RAL do often include bank account information in addition to the temporary disposal account used to receive the RAC/RAL. This is called an “ultimate bank account”, and we have been told it exists for the majority of RAC/RAL recipients. We have been told that the IRS/Treasury has made the decision to allow direct deposit into these accounts.
For a minority of RAL/RAC recipients, their RAL/RAC funds are disbursed in the form of a paper check or prepaid card. Unfortunately, these folks will receive a paper check for their stimulus payment.”