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 money will be directly deposited into eligible people's bank accounts or sent in the mail by a paper check.

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. People who missed one of the COVID stimulus payments or had received less than the full amount were able to claim the credit. But the IRS on Friday said it discovered many eligible taxpayers hadn't done so.

“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.

Here's more about the unexpected cash this group of taxpayers will soon receive: