A million taxpayers will soon receive up to $1,400 from the IRS. Who are they and why now?

Approximately 1 million taxpayers will automatically receive special payments of up to $1,400 from the IRS in the coming weeks. The IRS said it's distributing about $2.4 billion to taxpayers who failed to claim a Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 tax returns. “Looking at our internal data, we realized that one million taxpayers overlooked claiming this complex credit when they were actually eligible,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.