Stimulus Checks
The stimulus payments would be $1,400 for most recipients. Those who are eligible would also receive an identical payment for each of their children.
To qualify for the full $1,400, a single person would need an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or below. For heads of household, adjusted gross income would need to be $112,500 or below, and for married couples filing jointly that number would need to be $150,000 or below.
To be eligible for a payment, a person must have a Social Security number.
Is there a partial payment for higher earners?
Yes. But payments would phase out quickly as adjusted gross income rises.
For single filers, the checks decrease to zero at $80,000. For heads of household, the cutoff is $120,000. And for joint filers, the checks stop at $160,000.
Payments for children decrease in the same way.
Do college students count as eligible dependents?
College students whom qualifying taxpayers claim as dependents are eligible. (They weren’t for past payments.) The payment would go to the parent taxpayer, not the child.
Do older relatives who live with us count as eligible dependents?
Good news here, too. If claimed as dependents, these relatives are also eligible this time. The payment would go to the qualifying taxpayer, not the dependent adult.
Which year of income determines eligibility?
The most recent year on record at the Internal Revenue Service. If you’ve already filed your taxes this year, it would be 2020. If not, it would be 2019.
During the last round of payments, the I.R.S. got the first payments out within a few days. As before, you would track the status of your payments via the I.R.S.’s Get My Payment tool. Be aware that the volume of users sometimes overwhelms the site.
What should I do if I still haven’t gotten a payment from a past round of stimulus?
If you were in fact eligible to receive it, you can try to recover it through the so-called Recovery Rebate Credit when filing your 2020 return. Make your claim on Line 30 of Form 1040 or 1040-SR.
Unemployment Insurance
If you’re already receiving unemployment benefits, payments would generally be extended for another 25 weeks, until Sept. 6. The weekly supplemental benefit, which is provided on top of your regular benefit, will remain $300 but run through Sept. 6.
Although unemployment benefits are taxable, the new law would make the first $10,200 of benefits tax-free for people with income less than $150,000. This applies to 2020 only.
How would the benefit extensions work?
The extended payments would continue to be delivered through different federal programs, largely based on the type of work you did and for whom.
Benefits through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which covers the self-employed, gig…