Second Stimulus Check Calculator - HEROES Act Payment

The HEROES Act stimulus calculator models a simplified House Democratic proposal from 2020 that would have paid $1,200 for the filer and $1,200 for each dependent—everyone counted as a full adult unit rather than a smaller child add-on. That design is more generous to larger households than the HEALS Act $500 dependent amount and more generous than the enacted $600 second round. The phase-out in this engine is still a straight 5% of AGI above $75,000, which is a single-filer simplification of the income tests Congress used in 2020 recovery payments. The formula is Payment = max(0, 1200 × (1 + dependents) − 0.05 × max(0, AGI − 75,000)). Zero dependents and $40,000 AGI yield $1,200. Two dependents yield three units, or $3,600, if AGI stays under $75,000. At $90,000 AGI with no dependents, $750 is subtracted from $1,200 and $450 remains. Because every dependent is a full $1,200, phase-out to zero occurs at a higher AGI for big families than under a $500 add-on. The actual HEROES Act was a broad relief package, not only checks: unemployment, state aid, and other titles sat alongside the rebate language. This page isolates the check math. It does not implement filing-status thresholds, qualifying-child tests, or recapture on a later Form 1040. Joint filers would have faced a higher AGI start than $75,000 in the real 2020 payment design, so a married couple should not treat this cutoff as theirs. Keep the exercise historical. The HEROES Act as modeled here was not the law that issued the second round of deposits. Use the figure to compare proposal generosity, to teach phase-outs, or to contrast $1,200 units with $600 units. A family of four under the threshold is modeled as $4,800 here versus $2,400 on a $600-per-person bill, which is the comparison most readers want. It is not an IRS calculation, not a claim form, and not tax advice.