IRS Sends Stimulus Payments To 'Wrong Bank Accounts' Affecting Estimated 13M Tax Service Customers

(CBS Dallas) For millions of Americans who used online tax services, their second stimulus payment may have been sent to the wrong bank account.

Tax preparation company Jackson Hewitt said the Internal Revenue Service sent payments to an estimated 13+ million banks accounts that are no longer open or valid.

These bank accounts were set up by tax companies, like Jackson Hewitt, H&R Block, and TurboTax, as temporary accounts used to deposit tax refunds for their customers who opt to have tax preparation fees taken out of their refund.

The accounts are usually closed after the remaining refund money to pass along to the client.

The problem is, the IRS still has these accounts in its records, so that's where the federal government sent millions of stimulus payments.

Tax firms said they are doing everything they can but point out this is the IRS' mistake.

In a statement, a spokesperson for TurboTax said, "Unfortunately, because of an IRS error, millions of payments were sent to the wrong accounts and some may not have received their stimulus payment. We have been working tirelessly on a solution with the Treasury and the IRS. As a result, our expectation now is that within days the error will be corrected and stimulus payments will begin being deposited into the correct bank accounts for affected TurboTax customers."

H&R Block said it "processed all stimulus payments to millions of our customers, whether via direct deposit to a bank account, check, or onto our Emerald Prepaid Mastercard."

However, for many Americans who used online tax services, it may be too late to receive an advance $600 stimulus payment.

On the Jackson Hewitt website, the company said, "Impacted banks are required to send the affected payments back to the U.S. Treasury… Jackson Hewitt and its tax preparers have not and will not receive funds from the IRS to distribute to taxpayers."

People who do not receive their stimulus payment by the January 15 deadline will have to wait to claim their stimulus check as a tax credit when they file their 2020 taxes.

To find out if you've been impacted by this IRS error, click on the IRS'  Get My Payment tool to view the status of your stimulus check.

The status will show the last four digits of the bank account number the payment was sent to.