Most Maine Residents Will Likely Get A $450 Check In January

Good news is to be expected very soon, we hope. It has been said that all taxpayer should soon see hundreds of dollars in relief checks.

When I say soon, I mean next month and that is in a blink of an eye peeps!

This happened because a budget committee of lawmakers took a vote on Wednesday evening to propose and put forward the passage of a bill including $450 relief checks to taxpayers and emergency heating.

The checks are known as the winter energy relief payments and they make up $389 million of the $473 million package, according to Central Maine.

However, in order for this to definitely happen, the bill has to be approved on January 4th and if it is, the checks will begin being issued and sent by the end of January. All of the relief checks should be delivered by the end of March.

According to Central Maine, almost 880,000 residents of Maine should start receiving the refund checks next month, if the bill is approved.

The bill headed for the Legislature’s approval Jan. 4 also contains $4 million to finish the first round of inflation relief checks.

Central Maine

The commission of the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services, Kirsten Figueroa said on Wednesday at a hearing in Augusta that the program is the same as the previous round of prior checks sent out. The previous checks were $850  and the current plan with the $450 checks will be sent to the same pool of taxpayers. By doing the same thing, it will allow the checks to be sent out faster.

This time the checks are being sent by paper, not direct deposit, as the article states. The reason for that is that the government does not have every taxpayers banks or credit unions routing number so it would be tough to directly deposit them. It would also most likely be a much longer process. And even though most of us file our taxes through direct deposit, a lot of us change banks from year to year. So, paper checks it is.

Their are additional points within this bill as well and they are the following,

The pending bill also adds $40 million to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and another $10 million in emergency heating assistance for households that don’t qualify for the low income program. And it includes an additional $21 million for housing assistance. About $6 million of that funding is being earmarked for applications for federal emergency rental assistance that were pending when the state shutdown the program on Sept. 29.

Central Maine

If you are in need of any information on the relief checks or further details on the assistance that could be provided, visit the State of Maine website.