Biden Signs $1.9T Stimulus Bill

Biden plans to hold a televised address at 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday to speak about the pandemic.

As to the direct payments, a post on the White House’s blog states that:

• For households who have already filed their income tax return for 2020, the IRS will use that information to determine eligibility and size of payments.
• For households that haven’t yet filed for 2020, the IRS will review records from 2019 to determine eligibility and size of payment. That includes those who used the non-filer portal for previous rounds of payments.
• For tax returns with direct deposit or bank account information, the IRS will be able to send money electronically. For households for which Treasury cannot determine a bank account, paper checks or debit cards will be sent.

A family of four with parents making $75,000 a year combined, and with kids in school aged 8 and 5, will get $5,600 in direct payments, $1,400 for each parent and child.

Because of the expanded Child Tax Credit, they will also get $2,600 more in tax credits than before. The bill increases the credit to $3,600 for children under age 6, and to $3,000 per child 6 to 17, up from $2,000 per child.

“That’s $8,200 more in the pockets of this family as they try to weather this storm — on top of additional money in this bill to reopen schools safely, get shots in arms faster, and help those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own,” the White House blog states.