WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — As Washington negotiates a third stimulus check as part of the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill, people are already trying to calculate how much they might receive.
Over the weekend, the country moved a step closer to $1,400 stimulus checks when the House approved the American Rescue Plan.
But who will get them and how much money will they ultimately receive?
The American Rescue Plan calculator created by Jasmine Mah, a web developer for Omni Calculator, will figure out what your Economic Impact Payment will look like based on your tax filing status, number of dependents, adjusted gross income and whether or not you filed taxes in 2019 or 2020.
U.S. resident with a social security number can qualify for a stimulus check, however certain people who didn’t file taxes recently may still receive a payment.
Mah updates the tool as new developments arise in Washington D.C., but says some users experiencing an exceptional situation to which the calculator is not applicable can find guidance in the tool’s FAQs or in the bill itself under 2021 Recovery Rebates to Individuals.
Omni Calculator is a startup that has created thousands of free calculators for people to apply to life situations.
While the Senate is expected to try and make changes to the bill as they begin debating it this week, the current House proposal calls for $1,400 stimulus checks to go to the same Americans who received direct payments in round two of coronavirus relief. Depending on the timing of the bill’s passage, Americans should keep in mind that the IRS will go with the most updated salary/dependent information, so filing 2020 taxes before a third round of stimulus checks could change the size of the payment.
If you need a refresher, anyone who made $75,000 or less will get the full amount — and couples earning $150,000 or less will get $2,800 in relief payments. As your income level increases above those thresholds, the amount you will receive decreases. The current plan calls for the phase-out of direct payments for single people to be $100,000 and $200,000 for couples.
“Head of household” recipients, such as a single parent, will have a higher income cutoff than the single category. Those people are still eligible for $1,400 while earning up to $112,500 with $1,400 per dependent. For those Americans, stimulus checks will completely phase out at incomes of $150,000 or more.
In addition to the $1,400 payments, the bill would extend emergency unemployment benefits through August and increase tax credits for children and federal subsidies for health insurance.
It also provides billions for schools and colleges, state and local governments, COVID-19 vaccines and testing, renters, food producers and struggling industries like airlines, restaurants, bars and concert venues.
Now the big question is: How quickly will the measure move through the Senate and could we see those direct payments this month?
“We have no time to waste,” Biden said on Saturday. “We act now — decisively, quickly and boldly — we can finally get ahead of this virus.”
Democratic leaders hope to spend two weeks debating the relief package and get it to Biden’s desk before the most recent emergency jobless benefits end on March 14. If that happens, it’s possible the U.S. Treasury Department could get direct payments processed in a matter of days — meaning you could see money this month.
The battle is also emerging as an early test of Biden’s ability to hold together his party’s fragile congressional majorities — just 10 votes in the House and an evenly divided 50-50 Senate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
