When MD Residents Could Receive $600 Stimulus Check Payments

MARYLAND — Hopes for a round of $2,000 coronavirus relief checks were blocked in the U.S. Senate Tuesday, but a second round of stimulus check payments began arriving Tuesday night for some Marylanders and will continue into next week, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said.

Paper checks will begin to be mailed on Wednesday. Most people who make under a certain amount will receive a one-time, non-taxable payment of $600.

Full payments will go to people who meet these criteria for adjusted gross income based on 2019 tax returns: $75,000 for single filers, $112,500 for heads of household, and $150,000 for those married filing jointly. After those thresholds, the payments decrease, and won't be available for single-filers who earned more than $99,000. Adults also get $600 for each child they claim as a dependent.

If your banking information is not on file with the IRS, you will receive payment via a paper checkor EIP card through the mail, reports CNET. It could take the IRS weeks or months to process all the payments that go out as checks or on the EIP cards.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday shut down Democrats' push to immediately bring President Donald Trump's demand for bigger $2,000 checks up for a vote, the Associated Press reported. The House voted overwhelmingly Monday to increase the size of payments.

McConnell said he plans to bring the president's demand for the $2,000 checks and other remaining issues "into focus." Among those issues is Trump's insistence on a voter fraud investigation despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

"McConnell’s cynical ploy is designed to kill $2K checks by combining it with provisions that fuel Trump’s false claims of election fraud and punish Twitter for exposing them. Stop playing games with people's lives—let's vote on a clean bill for $2K checks!" Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

Democrats in an unusual twist found themselves agreeing with President Trump, who called for $2,000 relief payments and held up signing the stimulus package in a bid to boost payments.

"Mitch McConnell is doing all he can to deprive Americans the $2K relief payments Democrats, @POTUS and many Rs agree on. Every move shows he cares more about political theater than really delivering the relief many Americans need to survive," Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland tweeted Tuesday.

Patch Editor Ryan Bonner contributed reporting to this story.