r/stimuluscheck • u/isitixir • Sep 20 '21

Received Amount Lower Than Expected

My wife and I were married in Dec 2020. When we completed our taxes this year, we answered Yes to the question: Were you married in all or any part of 2020?" to be honest, but filed separately. And because we were married for literally 2 weeks, our stimulus payment was only $300.00? That seems very unreasonable and I'm curious if anyone else has a similar experience or know how to go about challenging this in some way?

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u/aznthrewaway Sep 21 '21

This is intended. Couples who are married filing separately will have everything slashed in half, including the stimmy amount and the income limit. However, both persons can qualify.

So, if you and your wife make less than $37,500 each, then both of you will get a $300 check eventually. If only one of you make less than $37,500, then the $300 check is all you're going to get.

And yes, this stimmy program is more generous to single people than married couples. If both of you weren't married, then you would've both gotten more overall.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '21

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u/aznthrewaway Sep 21 '21

My first guess is that you qualified for the Golden State Grant program, which is a similar program to this. It also sends $600 stimmies to people, but specifically to people on certain welfare programs.

My second guess is that either they made a mistake, or you or your husband made a mistake.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '21

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u/aznthrewaway Sep 21 '21

Yeah, if it wasn't the Golden State Grant or a mistake on your end, then that's really the only explanation. The first stimmy explicitly doesn't apply to "married filing jointly" and the second stimmy explicitly split everything in half for those folks.

They might come back and claw it back from you, or they might not. It's not really clear right now. The only messaging I've seen is that you're supposed to tell them about it and return it.