Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act
CARES was signed by the President on March 27, 2020.

The stimulus package was signed to provide financial relief to individuals, families, and businesses.

Helpful calculator for you to calculate your stimulus check.

The rebate is a one-time payment from the Federal Government and is mainly referred to as the stimulus checks.

The amount is subject to income limitations – phase-out begins at $75K of AGI (Adjusted Gross Income).

See the screenshot below.

How is income determined for the payment?​

• Based on AGI on 2019 tax return if filed
• Else, based on AGI of 2018 if filed
• Else, based on 2019 Social Security or Railroad Retirement Benefits statement on file with the SSA

If you meet one of the criteria below should still file for 2019 tax return even if you are not required to do so

• Filed a 2018 return but have a new qualifying child or children since 2018
• Have a taxable income in 2019, even if under the filing threshold

You should not file a “zero” return to receive the rebate.

The following individuals are NOT eligible for a recovery

• Nonresident aliens
• Any individual who was claimed or could be claimed as a dependent on another individual’s 2019 income tax return
• Any individual who does not have a social security number
• Any qualifying child who has not been reported on a 2018 or 2019 tax return with a valid SSN

Will the recovery check need to be paid back?

• According to Congressional Research Service (CRS), no “when taxpayers file their 2020 income tax returns in 2021, they find that the advanced credit is greater than the actual credit, then they would not be required to repay the excess credit. In contrast, if the advanced credit is less than the actual credit, then taxpayers would be able to claim the difference in their 2020 income tax returns.

How will individuals receive their rebates?

• It will be issued via direct deposit to individuals who have their banking data from a prior tax refund on file with the IRS.
  • Individuals who filed a tax return in 2018 or later and requested their refund be issued via direct deposit for that year will be considered to have their banking information on file with the IRS.
  • For those who do not have bank information on file, the Treasury Department is working on creating a web-based system to gather it.
  • IF no bank information is provided via the above methods, a paper check will be issued.

Need help or more questions? Send me an email (Christine@TehFinancialCoaching.com) or set up a tax consultation chat with me using this link.

I hang out a lot on LinkedIn. Feel free to connect or follow me on LinkedIn!

Need to talk to someone about your finances? Go ahead and set up a complimentary chat using this link. 

I personally don't think there's anything wrong in owing the IRS some money. I prefer this over a refund. Why? Because owing money means you got a ZERO percent interest loan from the IRS versus them getting the interest free loan from you through a refund. The only thing I would want to avoid is the underpayment tax penalty. There are 3 ways to avoid that and I talk about that in the video below.

I did a Facebook live of the 5 different filing status of your tax return.

In this video, I talk about the most important component to pay attention to when you're on subsidized health insurance here in the US. If you don't estimate this correctly, you might owe thousands of dollars when tax time comes!

Apologize for not writing in awhile. My change in career last year have made me neglect my site a bit. I will work on trying to get regular posts in as I have a lot to share when it comes to finances. 

So what have I been up to? Last year, I switched careers to be in corp finance doing FP&A (financial planning and analysis) from more than a decade in the Data Analytics (DA) field. I wanted to be in finance at my day job as working with numbers (especially money) really excites me so I decided to switch. Plus I was getting really bored with DA and don't see much of a future there. When I finally got the job, I was really excited to learn everything about finance, our business partners and the different products that our company Visa had to offer. It was a very exciting time for me indeed; and have consumed a lot of my energy. Now that my excitement have calmed down a little, I'm back to putting more attention to my main passion - helping individuals achieve financial freedom!
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Aside from my day job, I continue to have sessions with my coaching clients outside the regular business hours. I also continue studying and learning whatever I can get my hands on to help me be a better coach. I've been studying tax as I get a lot of clients who ask for tax advice during our session. I started with taking the class at H&R block, then working for an individual tax preparer last year, and then this year I decided to volunteer for VITA preparing taxes for low income households (picture at the VITA site below). For more information, please refer to this link. I realize that I really enjoy doing tax as well so I want to take it to the next level by studying and committing to getting my Enrolled Agent (EA) by end of this year. So stay tuned for this service to pop up. I am really looking forward to offering this so I don't have to refer my clients out. This will make it a lot more convenient for both of us.