California Stimulus Updates: Next Checks Coming On October 31
The latest on the Golden State Stimulus II program
- Stimulus Checks.The benefits and checks for each of the 50 states
The economic problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic saw the USA’s federal government send out stimulus checks to low-income and medium-income families. These checks for as much as 1,400 dollars helped Americans to deal with the aftermath of the pandemic, but now the central government in Washington DC have stopped this program. The onus is now on states to pay out stimulus checks to their residents and that’s what California has been doing.
The Californian government has been keen to support its residents by continuing to pay out stimulus checks and by offering other financial aids and benefits programs. Now, the California Franchise Tax Board expects that the remaining Golden State stimulus payments will be made by October 31.
For Californians who are eligible and who are due to receive their payment via direct deposit, Halloween is the expected deadline for seeing the cash appear in the bank account. “If you qualify, you will receive your payment by either direct deposit or check in the mail and, typically, you’ll receive this payment using the refund option you selected on your tax return,” the California Franchise Tax Board have stated. “Most direct deposit stimulus payments will be issued between September 1 2021 and October 31 2021. Some payments may need extra time to process for accuracy and completeness.”
When Will My Stimulus Payment Be Sent
California’s stimulus payments are going out twice a month, or about every two weeks, though some may go out earlier or later. Those who qualify and have already set up direct deposit when filing their 2020 tax return can expect an electronic payment.
Most direct deposit stimulus payments will be issued before Oct. 31. If you filed a state tax return after Sept. 1, you might have to wait at least 45 days for the return to be processed and have a check issued.
As for paper checks, those will start going out Oct. 6, and will continue through January of next year. Paper checks will be sent in batches based on the last three digits of the ZIP code on your 2020 tax return. If your tax return is processed during or after the date of your scheduled ZIP code payment, the Franchise Tax Board says, you should allow up to 60 days after your return has been processed.
For a list of timeframes based on ZIP codes, check here. Note that you should allow up to three weeks for a check to arrive by mail once it’s been sent.
Current Stimulus Check Details: $600 California Payments $1000 Teacher Bonuses More
Here are the state governments sending stimulus checks and bonus payments for individuals. Plus, more child tax credit payments are going out to families on Oct. 15.
A fourth stimulus payment isn’t on the agenda in 2021.
Families and individuals across the country have received three stimulus checks since the start of the pandemic, but a fourth stimulus check isn’t likely to happen. There is, however, a petition calling for $2,000 recurring checks to all Americans, which has collected more than 2.9 million signatures, but Congress has no official plans to approve another stimulus payment at this time. But many families are still facing numerous hardships, especially since the enhanced unemployment benefits have expired and delta variant cases are rising.
To close the gap in federal support, several state governments have developed programs to give residents additional financial relief. Millions of Californians received a second round of Golden State Stimulus checks , and low-income are eligible for direct payments of $300 or $500. Educators received bonuses in states like Florida, Michigan and Tennessee, and some front-line workers in Vermont also received checks.
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When And How Will I Receive My Payment
Heres the timeline for when you can expect to receive the $600 Stimulus Check for Californians:
Once your 2020 tax returns are processed and it is determined that you are eligible for the Golden State Stimulus payment, then heres what will happen:
If you filed your tax return between January 1, 2021, and March 1, 2021:
You will receive your stimulus payment beginning after April 15, 2021.
- Direct deposits: Allow up to 2 weeks
- Paper checks: Allow up to 4 to 6 weeks for mailing
If you filed your tax return between March 2, 2021, and April 23, 2021:
You will receive your stimulus payment beginning after May 1.
- Direct deposits: Allow up to 2 weeks
- Paper checks: Allow up to 4 to 6 weeks for mailing
If you file your tax return after April 23, 2021:
- Direct deposits: Allow up to 45 days after your return has been processed
- Paper checks: Allow up to 60 days after your return has been processed
Some payments may need extra time to process for accuracy and completeness.
Officials Call For Patience
However, some payments may be delayed, the state warns, because they may need more review depending on the situation or information we have.”
“This could include address changes, bank account changes, etc,” a post to the tax agencies website reads.
A total of $12 billion in direct payments is slated to go out to qualifying residents, benefiting about two of every three Californians.
The stimulus checks were included as part of California’s recently passed $100 billion budget.
Read our stimulus checks live blog for the latest updates on Covid-19 relief…
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How Quickly Will The Aid Arrive
The stimulus assistance for residents earning $30,000 a year or less will come four to five weeks on average after they file 2020 tax returns with the state Franchise Tax Board if they also sign up for direct deposit, Palmer said. The wait could be as long as seven weeks for those receiving the $600 in a check from the state by mail.
In all, the state will provide 5.7 million payments to low-income Californians as part of the $9.6-billion economic recovery package.
Governor Gavin Newsom Facing A Recall Election
Governor Newsom is facing a recall election on 14 September, whether the additional Golden State Stimulus checks will make a difference has yet to be seen. The effort to recall the governor began before the pandemic but gained steam when he was caught attending a birthday dinner at the swanky French Laundry maskless with multiple households, despite the states covid-19 restrictions discouraging both actions.
The last recall election in 2003, which resulted in Governor Gray Davis being turfed out, saw a voter turnout of 11 percent higher than the year before when Davis was reelected to office. The latest poll released the day before the second round of Golden State Stimulus payments started going out Newsom had just over 50 percent of Californians saying they would vote Keep according to FiveThirtyEight.
Don’t Miss: What Was The First Stimulus Check Amount
What To Know About $127m In Relief
We asked the Franchise Tax Board to catch us up on where the program is now. Media liaison Andrew LePage with the FTB offered these answers:
Question: How many payments went out in December, before Jan. 1, 2022?
Answer: Between Dec. 13 and Dec. 31 about 794,000 GSS II checks valued at more than $568 million were mailed and about 9,000 direct deposits valued at about $6.1 million were issued Dec. 10.
The latest round: Between Dec. 27 and Jan. 11, 2022, the state is scheduled to mail about 180,000 GSS II checks. Also, on Dec. 24 the state issued about 1,400 GSS II direct deposits. Combined, the roughly 181,400 GSS II payments in the latest round are valued at about $127 million.
Q: How many payments are going out in 2022?
A: The final scheduled round calls for GSS II payments to be mailed between Dec. 27 and Jan. 11. A relatively small number of payments will continue to go out after Jan. 11.
Q: Total amount of payments made since the GSSII program began?
A: As of the latest round, the state has issued or announced a total of more than 8.2 million GSS II checks and direct deposits valued at just over $5.9 billion.
At this point, the vast majority of GSS II payments have been issued or announced.
Recently weve used a very rough estimate of a total of 8.5 million GSS II payments when all have been issued. The latest trends indicate that the final total could be between 8.3 million and 8.4 million GSS II payments.
Q: Any leftovers to note?
Who Will Get The Relief
About 565,000 stimulus payments will go to thosewith individual tax identification numbers who did not receive federal stimulus payments and whose income is below $75,000, many of whom are immigrants in the country illegally.
Those that have been left behind in the federal stimulus, California is not going to leave you behind, Newsom said Tuesday.
Taxpayers with individual identification numbers who also qualify for Californias state earned income tax credit would receive a total of $1,200 in state stimulus.
The $600 stimulus payments will also go to 1.2 million people who receive money from the federal supplemental security income or state supplementary payment programs, and 405,000 payments will be provided to participants in CalWORKS, the states welfare-to-work program. An additional 15,000 payments are planned for participants in the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants.
The CalWORKS payments will be placed on debit cards and issued to participants by mid-April, although the timing could change based on the ability to automate the process, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the California Department of Finance. The timing and method of grant payments for those on SSI and SSP are still being worked out and are dependent on conversations with the federal Social Security Administration, he added.
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Details On The California Stimulus Check
The Golden Gate Stimulus, a $3.8 billion deal passed in February, provides the new stimulus checks to Californians. It includes one-time stimulus checks for qualifying individuals.
California will send 8.5 million payments total, with two out of every three Californians being eligible. Eligible taxpayers in the state will receive one-time payments of $600. Qualifying individuals with ITINs usually immigrants and undocumented workerswill receive an additional $600, and taxpayers with dependents will receive an additional $500.
Expanding the criteria to individuals who filed with an ITIN was a strategic move by Gov. Newsom, including immigrants and undocumented individuals who were excluded from previous federal stimulus payment rounds.
How We Got Here
To begin, a brief history: Californians revolted against taxes in the late 1970s.
Voters passed Proposition 13, a landmark measure that limited property tax increases, in 1978. The next year, Paul Gann, one of the propositions co-sponsors, suggested another tax break.
Gann proposed implementing a cap on state spending: If Californias expenditures neared a certain threshold , the state would have to return funds to taxpayers in the form of a rebate.
Voters in 1979 overwhelmingly approved the measure, known as the Gann limit, and later amended the law to allow some of the excess revenue to also go toward funding education.
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A Fourth Stimulus Payment Is Currently Not In Any Proposal
Researchers have found that the first three stimulus checks helped reduce hardships like food insufficiency and financial instability. So far, during the pandemic, eligible adults have received a max of $3,200 and children have received up to $2,500. For struggling families, that’s not enough to bounce back from lost wages and benefits.
Since the American Rescue Plan, the White House has proposed several packages, including the American Jobs Plan and the Build Back Better agenda, but those don’t call for more direct aid. President Joe Biden is “open to a range of ideas” regarding stimulus aid, according to a June statement by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, but he already put forward what would be “the most effective for the short term.”
The scaled-back compromise of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal, which was agreed to in the Senate on July 28, doesn’t include anything related to “human infrastructure” — it doesn’t address child care, improved wages or job training. Instead, those elements are to be included in the proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation package, which is likely to be scaled back. The White House has outlined its “Build Back Better Agenda,” incorporating lower health care costs, tax cuts and investments in teachers and schools. Senate Democrats are working on the economic plan, but the process of approving final versions of the bill in Congress could take a while.
How Much Are The Latest California Stimulus Checks
The checks of Golden State Stimulus II are for between 600 dollars and 1,100 dollars. Different people will receive different amounts based on their circumstances and this can be broken down as so:
- If you qualified for the first stimulus check and claimed a dependent in 2020, you’ll get a 500 dollar additional payment this time around.
- If you did not qualify for the first stimulus check and did not claim dependents in 2020, you’ll get 600 dollars this time around.
- If you did not qualify for the first stimulus check and claimed dependents in 2020, you’ll get 1,100 dollars this time around.
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California Stimulus Checks: Final Round Being Distributed
The final round of the Golden State Stimulus II payments is being mailed out to qualifying California residents. Families that met the eligibility requirements receive $600 plus $500 for dependents.
With this final round of payments, California has now issued more than 8 million checks and deposits, valued at more than $5.9 billion.
The second round of stimulus checks for California residents was part of Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s $100 billion budget that he signed into law in July. As part of the plan, the state expected to provide billions in coronavirus relief to 15.2 million California households or about two-thirds of the state’s taxpayers.
“The Golden State Stimulus is key to lifting up those hit hardest by the pandemic and supporting Californias economic recovery, putting money directly in the hands of folks who will spend it on basic needs and within their local communities,” Newsom said in a statement at the time.
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Eligible recipients include current California residents who lived in the state for more than half of the 2020 tax year and individuals who earned $75,000 or less in 2020.
Taxpayers filing with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number who have applied for but have not received their ITIN by October 15, 2021, have until February 15, 2022, to file their return and still be eligible for GSS I and GSS II.
$600 Stimulus Check For Californians Faqs
If you have heard about the $600 Stimulus Check for Californians and are wondering if you are eligible, youve come to the right place. In this post, we will explain in detail what the Golden State Stimulus is about and answer the most frequently asked questions about the stimulus checks for $600.
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Stimulus Aid That’s Received The Ok
Child tax credit payments for families: A temporary expansion of the child tax credit for 2021 sends qualifying families up to $3,600 for each child — you can calculate your total here. The advance partial payments of up to $300 per dependent, which began this summer, are issued monthly through the end of the year, with a final payment in 2022.
Parents also have the option of deferring the advance monthly checks and instead get their payment in the spring. There is no cap on the total credit amount that a family with multiple children can claim. If the credit is more than what’s owed in taxes, families will receive the excess amount as a tax refund next year. Plus, low-income families can qualify for the maximum credit. Here’s more on child tax credit payment dates and eligibility.
Additional federal stimulus money: The third stimulus payments of up to $1,400 are still going out in batches to those who are eligible through the end of 2021. The IRS is also sending out “plus-up” payments, which is extra money making up the difference between the stimulus amount you already received and the amount you’re eligible to receive .
Also, if an individual in your family becomes a dependent in 2021, such as a newborn or foster child, they could also be eligible for a $1,400 payment. According to the tax agency, for any new qualifying dependents to receive the third payment you’d have to claim a Recovery Rebate Credit on your 2021 tax return that you’ll file in 2022.
California Stimulus Check Summary
Heres the bottom line:
The state of California will provide the Golden Status Stimulus payment to families and people who qualify.
There is Golden State Stimulus I and Golden State Stimulus II.
The Golden State Stimulus II payments are different from the Golden State Stimulus I payments.
To receive your payment, file your 2020 tax returns by October 15, 2021.
Also Check: Do I Qualify For 3rd Stimulus Check
Golden State Stimulus Check #1
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California state legislature announced a $9.6 billion spending deal in February 2021 to help those hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This bill is also called the Golden Status Stimulus package.
California will provide the Golden Status Stimulus payment to families and people who qualify. This is a one-time $600 or $1,200 payment.
The Golden State Stimulus aims to:
- Support low-income Californians
- Help those facing hardship due to COVID-19
How Much Money Will I Get
For most Californians who qualify, you do not need to do anything to receive GSS II other than file your 2020 tax return. If you still need to file, you can find different options for filing online, on paper or in person before the deadline on Oct. 15,
If you’d like to see if you qualify, or estimate the amount of your GSS II, you can go to the Franchise Tax Board estimator. If you have a Social Security number and meet all the GSS II requirements above, you should receive $600 if you had no dependents, and $1,100 if you claimed at least one dependent. Note that some of the payment amounts change depending on whether you received GSS I, whether you have an SSN or ITIN and if you are married filing separately.
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