Millions of US families to receive child benefits from Covid relief bill in July – live | US news

The supreme court has agreed to take up a case challenging a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The case could give the majority-conservative court the chance to reconsider Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established the right to access abortion.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

There were initial concerns that the IRS would not be able to start sending the monthly child tax credit payments in July because of the demands of tax season and the rest of the coronavirus relief package.

However, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said at a Senate hearing last month that his agency was on track to meet the original timeline for distributing payments.

“We fully expect to launch in July. We expect to launch with payments going out on a monthly basis,” Rettig told senators.

But the IRS commissioner acknowledged there may be some troubleshooting that needs to be done to improve the portal built to aid distribution of the funds.

“It is going to be as user-friendly as possible,” Rettig said of the portal.

According to the treasury department, roughly 39 million American households will start receiving monthly payments from the enhanced child tax credit starting in July.

The monthly payments are meant to help families with children budget with the tax credit in mind, rather than receiving the money as one lump sum.

The enhanced payments are phased out for married couples filing jointly who make more than $150,000 a year, heads of household who make more than $112,500 a year and any other single filers who make more than $75,000 a year.

The benefits are expected to cover about 88% of children in the US and will is expected to help reduce child poverty nearly in half across the country.

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

The White House has announced that the enhanced child tax credit benefits included in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package will start being distributed in July.

With the benefits in effect, about 90% of Americans will receive monthly payments of up to $300 for each child in their families. The payments are expected to help significantly reduce child poverty.

“The American Rescue Plan is delivering critical tax relief to middle class and hard-pressed working families with children,” Joe Biden said in a statement celebrating the news.

The president also called on Congress to pass his American Families Plan to “ensure that working families will be able to count on this relief for years to come,” as the bill would make these benefits permanent.

“For working families with children, this tax cut sends a clear message: help is here,” Biden said.

The president will likely tout the news when he delivers remarks on the pandemic later today, so stay tuned for updates on that.