Curious when your $850 pandemic relief check will show up in your mailbox? You can now check that online.
Maine Revenue Services launched a website that allows Mainers to check on the status of their relief payments, which are expected to be distributed over the next two months.
The supplemental budget proposed by Gov. Janet Mills and approved by lawmakers in April allocated about $730 million for the checks as a way to use one-time surplus funds to help taxpayers cope with inflation. Lawmakers approved providing relief to taxpayers in the form of $850 checks after Republicans successfully fought to include about 58,000 households with higher incomes.
The Legislature’s Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee effectively cleared the way May 31 for the state to begin issuing the checks by granting permission to process some of the funds ahead of schedule. The budget called for distributing roughly half this month and the rest beginning in July.
Maine Revenue Services expects to issue about 200,000 checks a week, according to state officials. The one-time relief checks will be mailed to about 858,000 Mainers.
The Mills administration rejected the idea of using direct deposits to issue the checks, in part to avoid errors associated with people changing bank accounts or having their taxes filed by a professional who provided a different bank account. The state has the mailing address of all taxpayers but doesn’t have bank account numbers for a large number of them.
To be eligible, individuals must file a Maine individual tax return as a full-time resident by Oct. 31, 2022, not be claimed as a dependent on another’s tax return and have a federal adjusted gross income of less than $100,000 as individuals (or if married and filing separately), less than $150,000 as head of household or less than $200,000 for couples filing jointly.
Anyone who is eligible but has not already filed a return must do so by Oct. 31, 2022, to claim the $850 check. This could include people who are late in filing or people in a financial situation that does not require them to file, such as certain low-income Social Security recipients.
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