Austin Goergen, a student at Oregon State University, started a petition last year to make dependents 17 and older eligible for incentive checks.
Austin Goergen
Washington lawmakers are one step closer to approving new $ 1,400 stimulus vouchers for millions of Americans.
This time, for the first time, one large group could qualify: dependents aged 17 and older.
This is on the condition that the bill that the House of Representatives wants to pass and passes to the Senate is approved in its current form. The legislation is expected to be finalized in mid-March.
Such a change would be great news for people like Austin Goergen, 20, a student at Oregon State University, who started a Change.org petition last year when he realized the initial $ 1,200 stimulus checks were those like him and his peers would exclude. claimed as dependents.
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Goergen’s petition yielded nearly 5,000 signatures. Still, the second $ 600 stimulus checks, approved by Congress in December, continued to exclude individuals in that cohort, despite some calls on both sides of the aisle to change those conditions.
Previous estimates from the American Enterprise Institute have indicated that expanding incentive payments to adult dependents to as much as 26 million more people could qualify for money.
That would generally apply to students, as well as adults with disabilities who may have been claimed by a caregiver.
“It just seemed like a really big mistake,” said Goergen.
The new bill likely requires adult dependents to consult with those who claimed them and who will therefore receive the money. Nevertheless, Goergen said it is an improvement over the previous payments.
“I think the current bill regarding the approach to incentive controls is doing much better,” he said.
Who could qualify for the new $ 1,400 checks
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The bill calls for benefits of $ 1,400 per person, provided they fall below certain income limits.
Individuals with adjusted gross earnings of up to $ 75,000 are eligible for full payments, as are householders who earn up to $ 112,500 and married couples who apply together for up to $ 150,000.
The checks would be reduced for incomes above those thresholds and capped at $ 100,000 in income for single filers, $ 150,000 for heads of household, and $ 200,000 for joint filers.
This time, the phase-out rates are based on application status and the number of children you have, said Garrett Watson, senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation.
“That’s really because they wanted to ensure that applicants above a certain income level were not paid,” Watson said.
People should keep that in mind when deciding how much money to expect this time, he said.
As with the $ 600 second incentive payments, families of mixed-status households, where only one spouse has a valid Social Security number, are also eligible. The payments would go to the eligible spouse and their children, provided they also have a valid Social Security Number.
The House Ways and Means Committee has called for payments to be based on tax returns for 2019 or 2020.
Provided the legislation passes without delay, experts expect $ 1,400 deposits to begin in late March.