Second Stimulus Check Calculator - CASH Act Payment

The CASH Act stimulus calculator reconstructs a simplified House proposal from the 2020 COVID-19 debate that would have sent larger recovery checks than the $600 second-round payment that eventually became law. In this model the base amount is $2,000 for the filer and $1,000 for each dependent, then a 5% phase-out applies to AGI above $75,000. That structure is useful for comparing “what if the larger check had passed” against the enacted $600 and $1,400 rounds, but it is not a substitute for the bill text, and it does not encode every eligibility rule members of Congress discussed at the time. The formula is Payment = max(0, 2000 + 1000 × dependents − 0.05 × max(0, AGI − 75,000)). A filer with no dependents and $40,000 of AGI sees the full $2,000. The same filer at $90,000 of AGI is $15,000 over the threshold, so $750 is subtracted and $1,250 remains. Adding dependents raises the starting payment and therefore the AGI at which the payment hits zero. There is no filing-status switch: joint filers in the real legislative fight would have used a higher threshold, so a married couple should not treat $75,000 as their phase-out start. Historical calculators still get search traffic because households compare proposals, journalists explain phase-outs, and students of public finance want a numeric example rather than a press release. Use 2020 AGI if you are asking what a household would have seen under the proposal; use a current AGI only as a counterfactual. The CASH Act was not enacted in this simplified form, so the figure cannot be claimed, recovered, or used to argue with a tax preparer about a 2020 return. Treat the result as an educational scenario. It ignores nonresident status, dependent-filer rules, and any recapture on a later tax return. It is not tax, legal, or benefits advice, and it is not an official government calculator.