For anyone who’s hoping for the possibility of another $1,400 stimulus check from the federal government, there’s good news.
More such payments appear to be forthcoming, beyond the three smaller stimulus checks we know about and which are themselves coming soon (as part of the three remaining child tax credit checks). Regarding the latter, the next one of those is coming one week from Friday, on October 15. Meanwhile, there’s also an unrelated stimulus check, separate from those six total child tax credit payments, that some of you will be getting. It’s coming in 2022, and here’s what you need to know.
New $1,400 stimulus check coming soon?
Giving birth this year is the deciding factor, as far as who gets one of these new payments or not. Parents who welcome a newborn child at any point in 2021 are likely eligible for another stimulus payment, for $1,400, in 2022, according to both Fortune and Insider. They would get that check upon filing their federal taxes in 2022.
The way things stand now, what that also appears to mean is that parents would not only get that $1,400 check. But any parent who welcomes a newborn child in 2021 also likely qualifies for the temporarily expanded child tax credit. We say “likely,” because there’s still an income threshold. Sorry millionaires, not you!
As we’ve explained on numerous occasions now, the latter was made possible by the $1.9 trillion stimulus law from earlier this year. However, depending on when the child is born — such as if it’s in late December? For those parents, it would be too late to have this year’s monthly child tax credit checks reflect that change. In which case, the parents would get the money next year, after filing their taxes in 2022.
Additional details
Speaking of 2022, that was always the key year, anyway.
The original six child tax credits that parents are getting now? Those are actually an advance payment — or, more specifically, advance slices of half a payment — that ordinarily would have come next year. Those parents will get the rest of their full child tax credit payment in 2022. But in writing the stimulus law, Congress thought that a mechanism needed to be devised for parents to get at least something now.
Normally, this is a tax credit that recipients claim when they file their taxes. And because of the stimulus law being passed in March of this year, that meant this particular benefit would kick in next year — to help people with their 2022 federal taxes. Obviously, though, the coronavirus pandemic is still raging. Which is to say, it’s still having a big impact on the economy. That’s why it became necessary to find a way to get more checks out to Americans now.
