The IRS will help Americans track their stimulus payments with a new tool called "Get My Payment" it expects to launch by April 17.

According to the IRS, the first of the checks were sent out on Saturday.

The plan passed by Congress and signed by the President last month includes $1,200 checks to Americans who filed their income tax as “single” with an adjusted gross income below $75,000 and those who filed as “head of household” with an AGI of less than $112,500. Married couples who filed taxes jointly and who made less than $150,000 will receive $2,400. In addition, the government will pay $500 per qualifying child. Those who receive Social Security checks will also receive the payments as long as they fall under the income levels.

The money will be deposited directly into bank accounts if the IRS has the account information on file from previous years’ tax returns. If you did not file a tax return for 2018 or haven’t yet for 2019 you can submit your direct deposit information here. You should also use that link to submit your information to the IRS if you were not required to file a tax return in the past two years.

The agency also plans to build an online portal for people who have filed taxes but may need to update their direct deposit information. Stay tuned for availability.

According to estimates by the House Ways and Means Committee, here is how the checks are expected to go out.

• The IRS will make about 60 million payments to Americans through direct deposit in mid-April
• Within 10 days after the first round of payments, payments will be made to Social Security beneficiaries who did not file tax returns in 2018 or 2019 and receive their Social Security benefits via direct deposit. 
• About 3 weeks after the first round of payments, the IRS will begin issuing paper checks to individuals. The paper checks will be issued at a rate of about 5 million per week, which could take up to 20 weeks to get all the checks out.
• The checks will be issued in reverse “adjusted gross income” order -- starting with people with the lowest income first.