After nearly nine months and seemingly endless negotiations in Washington, millions of Americans could soon be getting a second stimulus check.
Congress leaders on Sunday unveiled a stimulus deal worth about $ 900 billion calling for another round of direct payments to help Americans get through the coronavirus pandemic.
The $ 600 checks are half the size of the $ 1,200 payments that lawmakers approved under the CARES Act in late March, but they can give many people a short-term financial lifeline within weeks.
Congress has not yet released the text of the stimulus bill or other important details about the new payments. But here’s what is known about the second round of checks and what the rollout might look like based on how the first were distributed.
Who is eligible for a different stimulus check?
As with the CARES Act, the latest incentive agreement will distribute $ 600 payments to individual taxpayers earning up to $ 75,000 per year or to married couples with annual income up to $ 150,000.
People with an income above those limits receive smaller amounts. It’s not certain how payments will be phased out under the final bill, but the CARES law reduced high-income checks by 5 percent of the amount by which their adjusted gross income exceeded the original threshold.
Households also get $ 600 for each dependent child, up from $ 500 under the CARES Act, meaning a family of two adults and two children can receive up to $ 2,400 in incentive money. But dependents who are 17 or older are reportedly not eligible for the money.
Lawmakers agreed with a provision that approximately 1.2 million U.S. citizens married to undocumented immigrants will cash the new checks, which are prohibited under the CARES Act, according to the New York Times.
When will I receive my stimulus check?
The timeline for distributing the checks is not yet certain, as Congress has not yet passed the bill, which lawmakers are expected to vote on Monday. But the money could go fast if the CARES Act is any indication.
The Treasury Department began making payments to more than 80 million taxpayers in mid-April, about two weeks after the CARES law was passed. In August, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the FBI could start rolling out new checks the week after Congress passed a bill to pass them.
“We did it the first time – I can transfer 50 million payments very quickly, many of which are in people’s direct accounts,” Mnuchin then told reporters.
People who submitted their bank account information to the Internal Revenue Service with their 2018 or 2019 income tax returns would likely be first in line, as the FBI could deposit the checks directly into their accounts.
The 14 million people who submitted their bank details to the IRS earlier this year to collect their first incentive checks may also get their second payment soon, but the Treasury has not yet said definitively whether it will reuse the bank details already collected, CNBC said. .
The process of rolling out the first incentive checks was plagued in the spring with disruptions, such as payments going into the wrong bank accounts and delivered to the deceased. But an IRS official has said the agency would be “better positioned” to issue another round of checks than it was in April.
“The infrastructure is already in place to manage such payment,” Chad Hooper, president of the Professional Managers Association, which represents IRS executives, told CNBC in August.
With pole wires