Governor Leon Guerrero: $11M from General Fund to CARES Act Stimulus Checks
As summarized in our previous Advisory, the CARES Act provides for eligible individuals to receive a tax rebate of up to $1,200 ($2,400 for joint taxpayers). The mechanism for paying the rebates is an advance refundable tax credit which is increased by $500 for each child and phased out for single taxpayers making $75,000 ($112,500 for heads of household, and $150,000 for joint taxpayers) at 5% per dollar of qualified income, or $50 per $1,000 earned. It phases out entirely at $99,000 for single taxpayers with no children and at $198,000 for joint taxpayers with no children.
To this point, it has been unclear exactly how or when these amounts will be disbursed to Guam residents. However, on April 9, 2020, Governor Leon Guerrero announced that more than $11 million from the Gov Guam General Fund will be used to advance the payment of federal economic impact payments to a "priority" group of who make $10,000 or less a year based on the 2018 tax return filing. Taxpayers do not have to apply or take any other action to receive their disbursement aside from filing a 2018 tax return.
For eligible taxpayers whose income exceeds $10,000 a year, it is estimated that they will receive their disbursements in approximately three weeks, once Guam receives an additional $134.8 million in individual economic relief from the federal government.
Local coverage of the CARES Act Stimulus Checks and the Governor’s Announcement can be found here:
https://www.kuam.com/story/41989324/governor-to-front-dollar11-million-in-federal-stimulus-payments