I'm not a tax accountant (or any other kind of accountant), and I don't play one on TV.

I have downloaded H&R Block 2020 program and plugged in all our numbers and have a fairly good idea of what our refund will be, barring any unexpected forms that might show up at the last minute.

What I noticed is this:

After I downloaded the latest update for the program, our refund went up by quite a bit.

Then I was taken to a question: Did you get a stimulus payment in 2020 or 2021? It then explained both stimulus payments and how much they were. It didn't really have a place to say yes or no, but on the same page, it asked: Did you get the first stimulus payment?

If I checked Yes, it went to a new page asking how much you got. Our refund was lowered by the amount I put in that box. (Just for goofs, I checked the No box and the refund went back up.)

Next was the same thing with the second stimulus payment. I answered Yes and our refund was lowered by the amount I put in that box.

So at the end of it, our refund was the same as it was before downloading the program update. Apparently, the update made the assumption that we hadn't received any stimulus payments until I answered the questions.

The point? If you haven't gotten your stimulus payment(s) yet, it looks like this will be the way for you to get them. It's simply added to your income tax refund. It wasn't obvious to me how/if this would happen, but now it is. I hope I've explained it so that it makes sense. I've seen several posts about people who haven't gotten theirs. I also wondered what happens to the people who may have had a great job in 2019 and then, because the payments were based on their income that year (or so I thought), maybe they lost their job in 2020 and still didn't get one because their 2019 income was too high. It seems like that sort of scenario would be taken care of with an income tax refund for 2020 as well.

In any case, I hope this helps.

Edit: To try to be more clear: I'm not saying stimulus payments are taxed. I'm saying that if you didn't receive them, it looks like they'll show up as an addition to your refund.

This has been kicking around in my head and I am just wondering how it works.

When/if they ever become available in my area:

1) Is there any mechanism for informing the public, or do we just have to keep Googling it?

2) If they're offered at places like CVS, Wallgreens, etc., is there someone on site to deal with any potential side-effects?

3) Will Primary Care Providers have the vaccine for their patients?

4) Is it always going to be a case of waiting in line for hours?

Maybe the answers are obvious to most of you, but I'm not seeing them.

Thanks in advance.

As an aside, I know of some people in my area who have had at least the first dose, but they work in the medical field. I don't know of any non-medical individuals getting it. Also, someone told me last week that the people she's talked to who had the second dose got very sick from it, mostly nausea and vomiting. Wondering if that's expected.