Millions of Americans may be asking themselves “Where’s my stimulus check?” right about now, given that the IRS has just sent out a new wave of child tax credit payments. The new checks had a pay date of Monday, November 15, and most of them were sent out in the form of electronic bank deposits. However, a portion of the $15 billion the IRS just sent out to some 36 million families also went out in the mail, as paper checks. In addition to that? One more round of these payments is coming in 2021. And there’s also a way for some families to get a big payday of as much as $1,800 soon.
We’ll walk through all of this in the post below. Starting with an update on a petition that’s been seeking a new stimulus check — in fact, recurring stimulus checks — totaling $2,000.
How to get $1,800 in stimulus check money soon
Today, millions of families will receive their Child Tax Credit and breathe a bit easier.
When Congress passes the Build Back Better Act, as they must, this investment in our kids and families will be made permanent.
Make sure your representatives hear from you. pic.twitter.com/RQEnoR5maY
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 15, 2021
Colorado restaurant owner Stephanie Bonin launched the Change.org petition last year, calling for the recurring stimulus checks. As a measure of how popular this idea is? The petition is currently just shy of having garnered 3 million signatures.
As a practical matter, though, here’s where this prospect stands, as we come to the end of the year.
The checks that went out on Monday are, once again, putting as much as $300 in the bank accounts of millions of parents. Less than one month from now, on December 15, this will happen again. There’s also a possibility Democrats will continue the expansion of the child tax credit into 2022. But nobody thinks a fourth stimulus check, at least at the moment, has any real chance of coming to fruition.
If you haven’t been getting the child tax credit payments, meanwhile, there’s good news. If you signed up via the Child Tax Credit Update Portal on the IRS website by Monday? Rather than getting the normal-sized child tax credit in December, yours will be super-sized. It could total as much as $1,800, as a catch-up, to encompass all the child tax credit checks that have gone out this year.
What’s next
Importantly, there’s also no need to wonder “Where’s my stimulus check?” or whether you’re out of luck if you missed Monday’s deadline.
If you’re eligible, you’ll get the child tax credit. It’s just a matter of when. So if you haven’t gotten any checks so far and haven’t signed up yet at the portal above? What you’ll do, instead, is apply for the full child tax credit amount when you prepare your federal tax return next year. Everybody else will, too, but they’ll only get half the amount next year — since half also got paid in advance.
Biden stimulus update
President Biden had wanted to extend the child tax credit extension for another three years — which would presumably have meant 36 more monthly child tax credit checks. However, largely as a result of opposition by West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, the White House has agreed to curtail an extension of the child tax credit from three years to only one more year (for now).
That proposal is currently pending in the Senate. One way or another, we should find out a resolution to this sometime in December.
