Another part of President Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief went into effect last week: the first monthly child tax credit payments were sent out to millions of families who have been struggling amid the pandemic. The IRS and the Treasury Department paid, predominantly through direct deposit, a total of $15 billion to about 35 million families. Altogether in those families, there are more than 60 million children.
Experts expect the credit to help lift 50% of poor American children out of poverty.
These are the first batch of payments. The IRS plans to make those payments on the 15th of every month throughout the year. The families that are eligible will receive up to $300 for children under six years. Those families who have children from 6-17 will receive $250.
Eligible families will automatically receive these payments under the condition that they have filed a 2019 or 2020 tax return or at least used the nonfiler documents for stimulus payments during the peak of the pandemic.
These child tax credit payments make up a large portion of Biden’s original $1.9 trillion coronavirus law that he signed in March. The objective is to assist the low and middle-income people by expanding the tax credit for 2021.
Families will receive half of the credit amount for 2021 this time around and the other half will be sent to them as soon as they file their tax returns the following year.
Senate Democrats have been trying to make the expansion of the tax credit permanent by including it in their $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package.
