One week from tomorrow, it’s payday in America. In more ways than one. That’s right — it’s time for a new stimulus check update, this one perhaps the most important of any similar update we’ve shared over the past 17 months or so.
Starting next Wednesday, the IRS will send the first installment in a six-month series of stimulus checks to millions of American families. If you’ve been following along as we’ve covered the imminent arrival of these new stimulus checks, then you know that the new payments will generally be for $250 or $300. Per eligible child. Let’s take another look at what’s coming, and who will receive these new payments.
A new stimulus check update
These new checks are perhaps the most important to be issued thus far during the coronavirus pandemic, for the simple reason that they’ll far surpass the size of earlier checks. When these new checks are added all together, that is.
There will be six new stimulus checks, in all. One each month, starting in July and running through December. Add up those checks, plus a corresponding tax credit you’ll receive next year, and the total will either be $3,000 or $3,600 — again, per child.
What these are: All of these new checks and the tax credit are really all one single thing. Remember the $1.9 trillion rescue package that Congress passed and President Biden signed in March? It included funding for more $1,400 stimulus checks. But those aren’t what we’re talking about here.
No, these new payments are all components of the expanded federal child tax credit. That’s another important part of this latest stimulus check update to be aware of.
The federal child tax credit – what you need to know
The March stimulus legislation expanded this tax credit from $2,000 up to $3,600 for each child under the age of six, and to $3,000 for kids between age six and 17.
Let’s say you have one 5-year-old child. You’ll receive $3,600, but not all at once. Half of that amount ($1,800) will come to you next year as a tax credit. After you file your federal tax return in 2022, that is. You’ll get the other $1,800 spread out over six monthly stimulus checks, starting July 15.
They’ll be for $300 each. And you’ll receive them by either direct deposit or in the mail when the IRS sends them out on the 15th of each month. Except in August, when the check will go out on Friday, August 13, since the 15th is a Sunday that month.
In terms of what else you need to know as part of this new stimulus check update:
We still don’t know some things. Like what happens after these six checks run out in December. And after the tax credit next year.
Will the child tax credit expansion continue? President Biden wants it to. It’s unclear, however, if there’s political support in Congress for this. And how this might impact discussions, if they ever get off the ground, for a fourth stimulus check. Which is a whole other political challenge.
