Here’s How to Claim Your Stimulus Payments: File Your Tax Return

For the third payment, the I.R.S. calculated eligibility and amounts based on 2019 returns. If your income dropped in 2020, you are likely to qualify for a bigger payment. After you file your 2020 return, the I.R.S. says, it will send out any higher amount that you are owed. If you still don’t get a payment and think you are owed one, you can file for a credit when you complete your 2021 return.

What is the Golden State Stimulus?

In February, California lawmakers approved a separate state stimulus payment of $600 to $1,200 for residents who qualify for the earned-income tax credit or who earned less than $75,000 last year.

California isn’t sending out checks under this Golden State Stimulus program. Instead, any money you’re entitled to will be added to your tax refund or reduce your tax due when you file your 2020 state return. Unlike the federal payments, undocumented residents can receive the California funds as long as they have a valid tax identification number.

San Francisco also runs a separate stimulus program for low-income residents. And yes, that, too, requires a tax return.

Will there be a fourth federal stimulus payment?

No more big checks are in the works.

But as part of the March stimulus package, many taxpayers with children will get a higher child tax credit, and the Treasury Department is supposed to start paying it out in monthly installments of $250 to $300 per child starting in July.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration also proposed $1.8 trillion in spending increases and tax cuts, including new federal support for child care and education, financed by higher taxes on wealthier Americans.

You keep telling me to file my taxes. Could you do them for me?

No, sorry. But here is our special pandemic guide to your 2020 taxes to help you do them yourself.

Senior citizens, low-income residents, the disabled, military personnel and those who speak limited English can also get assistance from two state programs.