Biden’s Covid relief plan: Here’s who could be eligible for $1,400 direct payments
The other key elements of the bill include unemployment benefits until the end of August and monthly benefits to parents of children under the age of 18.
The US House of Representatives early Saturday approved a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan in a partisan vote as the Republicans unanimously opposed the bill. If passed in Senate, the coronavirus relief plan, pushed by President Joe Biden, would provide the third round of federal stimulus checks to millions of American households. The other key elements of the bill include unemployment benefits until the end of August, monthly benefits to parents of children under the age of 18, and $70 billion for testing of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and vaccinations.
Under the subtitle “promoting economic security”, the sprawling bill proposes $1,400 payments to individuals who fall under a certain income threshold. The payments would go to individuals and their dependents and for the first time, dependents age 17 or older could become eligible.
Individuals with up to $75,000 adjusted gross income for that taxable year will be eligible for full payments. Apart from such individuals, married couples, who jointly file the return, earning up to $150,000 and heads of household earning up to $112,500 will qualify for the payments.
People with income above the threshold will receive smaller payouts. The phaseout of payments is capped at $100,000 for single filers, $150,000 for heads of household and $200,000 for married couples. The House Ways and Means Committee has suggested basing the payments on either 2019 or 2020 tax returns.
Read | What is Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill passed by the US House
The first two rounds of stimulus checks - $1,200 for the first round and $600 for the second - also had an income threshold. In the earlier rounds, individuals with income of up to $75,000 and married couples filing jointly with up to $150,000 income were eligible for the full payments. The phaseout in the first round of payment stood at $99,000 for single people and $198,000 for married couples, while $87,000 for a single person and $174,000 for married couples in the second round.
Those eligible Americans who didn’t receive the previous stimulus payments can claim the amount in the 2020 federal tax return as a recovery rebate credit. In order to ensure beneficiaries receive the amount sooner, they need to file the return as early as possible and set up a direct deposit account that is linked directly to their bank account.