Last year, President of the United States, Joe Biden, signed his first major piece of legislation to pass through Congress, the $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief bill. This bill includes a series of provisions to support families and the economy until the pandemic ends. One of the provisions, $1,400 direct stimulus payments, started to come out after the bill was signed into law by the President.
The third stimulus checks work on a similar basis as the previous two: first stimulus check and second stimulus check. Just like the previous round, this one was sent out automatically based on the information on the file. For this third stimulus check, the government department that is responsible for collecting most national taxes called Internal Revenue Service, which is also known as IRS in short, used the information that they have from either 2019 or 2020 to judge eligibility and to decide the amount an individual or family will get as the tax returns of 2020 was still being processed.
In the first month of 2022, the IRS announced that all third stimulus payments had been issued. More than 175 million third stimulus payments, which is more than $400 billion in total, were sent out starting in March last year as part of the American Rescue Plan Act. For those who have not received the third stimulus payment or got a partial amount and you deserve more, the IRS gave you another chance to claim the payment on your 2021 tax return. However, the deadline was due on April 18, 2022.
The fourth batch of the third stimulus checks was paid by the Internal Revenue Service or IRS on April 14, 2022. On March 15, the President had voted to deliver 100 million stimulus checks to taxpayers in 10 days. A lot of citizens of the United States began getting the first batch of payments through direct deposit just a few days after that.
Before the deadline, you are able to check key information from your most recent tax return in order to calculate the amount that you would get. You could do it by going to the IRS web tool View Your Account Information, which can be found here: https://en.as.com/en/2021/03/11/latest_news/irs.gov/payments/view-your-tax-account. Not only that, another way was to use the IRS web tool Where’s My Refund? This one can be found here: https://www.irs.gov/refunds.
So, what did you do to check if you were eligible to get a third stimulus payment? For those who have adjusted gross income or AGI of up to $75,000 or $150,000 married filing jointly, it could be concluded that you were eligible for the full $1400 stimulus payment. It is worth noting that adjusted gross income of AGI refers to your gross income such as wages, salaries, or interest minus adjustments for eligible deductions such as student loan interest or your Ira deduction. This one is found on line 8b of your 2019 Form 1040. Not only that, it is also able to be found on line 11 of your 2020 Form 1040.
Apparently, the stimulus amount would go down as your adjusted gross income or AGI increased more than $75,000 or $150,000 married filing jointly. It is stated that the stimulus check rebate would totally phased out at $80,000 for those who fill it alone with no qualifying dependents and $160,000 for those married filing jointly with no dependents. Keep in mind that mixed-status households, or households with different immigration and citizenship statuses, would be eligible for stimulus payments.
In fact, a ton of the citizens of the United States who were eligible for the $600 second stimulus checks could qualify for the third round of stimulus payments up to $1,400. Unfortunately, a lot of taxpayers with high earnings who used to be eligible for the previous stimulus checks are now not eligible. Everything has changed. Now, it only includes:
- Singles phase out at AGIs between $75,000 and $80,000.
- Heads of household phase out at AGIs between $112,500 and 120,000.
- Couples phase out at AGIs between $150,000 and $160,000.
Take note that it is not the same as the sliding scale that was used to determine eligibility for previous payments. The second stimulus checks were cut by the IRS by 5% for the total amount made over the AGI limit. It basically means the payments decreased by $5 for every $100 over the limit.
Check out the following table that explains third stimulus payments based on narrower income ranges for singles and joint tax filers:
$1,400 Stimulus Checks With Narrower Income Ranges
| Single AGI | Payment | Joint AGI | Payment |
| $75,000 | $1,400 | $150,000 | $2,800 |
| $76,000 | $1,120 | $152,000 | $2,240 |
| $77,000 | $840 | $154,000 | $1,680 |
| $78,000 | $560 | $156,000 | $1,120 |
| $79,000 | $280 | $158,000 | $560 |
| $800,000 and up | $0 | $160,000 and up | $0 |
For a comparison, check out how much the second stimulus checks paid out for individual and joint filers in December 2020. Before anything, keep in mind that individual filers making more than $87,000 and joint filers making more than $174,000 did not qualify for the second one.
Second Stimulus Checks for Individual and Joint Filers
| Single AGI | Payment | Joint AGI | Payment |
| $75,000 | $600 | $150,000 | $1,200 |
| $77,000 | $480 | $154,800 | $960 |
| $79,800 | $360 | $159,600 | $720 |
| $82,200 | $240 | $164,400 | $480 |
| $84,600 | $120 | $169,200 | $240 |
| $800,000 and up | $0 | $174,000 and up | $0 |
Were adult dependents getting the third stimulus checks? Apparently, adult dependents were also eligible for the third stimulus checks, including college students, elderly relatives and disabled adults. The term “dependent” is redefined on the text of the plan according to section 152 of the tax code, which includes both qualifying children and adults. It says: “Section 152(a) provides that the term “dependent” means a “qualifying child” (as defined in 2 section 152(c)) or a “qualifying relative” (as defined in section 152(d)).”
While the plan was $1,400 for every dependent that was qualified, families should know that the targeted lower income ranges exclude them if they collect more than $160,000. Let’s use the second stimulus checks as comparison. These second checks provided more $600 payments for qualifying dependents under the age of 17. It means a couple filing jointly with three eligible children could get a maximum second payment of $3,000 ($1,200 for married joint filers with an AGI under $150,000, and $600 for each additional qualifying dependent).
