The Department of Finance expects to start releasing to CNMI taxpayers the second batch of stimulus checks worth a total of $47 million by the end of this month or in early February.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s down to $600 for individual taxpayers, though\u2014half of the $1,200 that was handed out to taxpayers during the first round of stimulus checks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stimulus is at $600 at the moment,\u201d said Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig during a radio news briefing Wednesday. He said the U.S. Senate did not allow last Tuesday a vote to increase the stimulus from $600 to $2,000, as had been endorsed by President Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re still rolling out and going for the $600 as it is passed into law,\u201d Atalig said. <\/p>\n
He disclosed that he and his team at DOF had a conference call with their partners at the Internal Revenue Services and they expected to submit their implementation plan to the IRS by the end of that day, Wednesday, and have IRS approve the plan. <\/p>\n
\u201cKeep in mind the stimulus checks are processed differently here in territories\u2026unlike in the U.S. mainland where IRS directly submits and sends payments to the taxpayers,\u201d Atalig said.<\/p>\n
In the CNMI and other territories, he said, the territories must submit an implementation plan on how they\u2019re going to distribute the stimulus checks.<\/p>\n
Atalig noted that Finance had a \u201cvery successful\u201d implementation program and rollout in the first stimulus CARES Act distribution. He said they are just updating some of the challenges and some of the lessons learned that they had in their plan to be implemented in the second rollout.<\/p>\n
Atalig said he expects the distribution of the second stimulus checks to be a lot smoother. \u201cI think more people are informed on the challenges that we had in the early stages of rolling out the stimulus here in the CNMI,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Atalig said they anticipate three to four weeks from last Wednesday to get things done, so they are looking at the end of January to be able to roll out. <\/p>\n
\u201cKeep in mind we have to wait for the implementation plan to be accepted and approved by IRS. Once that is approved, we await for the transfer of funds to us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Atalig said their initial plan will be to just submit and upload the distribution to those that have fair, clean tax returns on the first list by using 2018 data.<\/p>\n
Atalig said there are differences in different taxpayers income between 2018 and 2019 and so those are the things that they need to iron out.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, those that have clean tax returns and pretty much not much of a big change within their 2018 and 2019 tax returns will probably get their stimulus checks right away, as soon as we receive the funds from IRS,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Atalig said they expect IRS to review and approve their implementation plan in the next 10 days. <\/p>\n
He expects the stimulus funds in the second round to amount to about $47 million.<\/p>\n
In the first round, Atalig said, they distributed over $58 million. \u201cThose are the estimates we have from [the Division of] Revenue and Tax, which we are going to be submitting to IRS today [Wednesday],\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Atalig said that, based on the first stimulus, they received the funds about three to four weeks after the passage of the stimulus bill. \u201cAnd so the timeframe would be at the end of January. We will be probably distributing our stimulus checks by the end of January [or] early February, and continue until we we\u2019ve submitted everything to all our taxpayers,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Trump signed last week the $900-billion pandemic relief package that will provide cash to businesses and individuals. The bill includes $600 checks for Americans who earn less than $75,000 per year. The massive bill also includes $1.4 trillion to fund U.S. government\u2019s operations through September 2021.<\/p>\n
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said last week that he wants to get the stimulus funds out to people as soon as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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