How this instrument works
California's Middle Class Tax Refund (MCTR) was a one-time 2022 program, informally called 'stimulus check II,' that sent between $200 and $1,050 to eligible households based on income, filing status, and dependents. The program closed in early 2023, so nothing here initiates a payment — it reproduces the exact tier the published rules assigned to a single filer, using adjusted gross income and whether the return claimed at least one dependent.
The formula is a plain staircase, not a curve: three adjusted-gross-income bands each carry a flat base payment — $350 up to $75,000, $250 up to $125,000, $200 up to $250,000 — and AGI above $250,000 receives nothing. A single dependent doubles whichever base tier applies, because the program's dependent bonus was set equal to the base amount and paid once per return, never scaled to the number of dependents claimed.
The people who still reach for this math are reconstructing a record rather than planning ahead — a tax preparer reconciling a client's old 1099-MISC against the amount actually deposited, or a household checking whether the debit card that arrived matched what the AGI on file should have produced. The formula only returns the scheduled entitlement; it excludes offsets against state debts and the difference between a direct deposit and a mailed debit card, both of which changed what actually arrived without changing the assigned tier.
- Enter the Adjusted gross income, $ (single filer) figure from the return you're checking — the AGI line, not gross wages.
- Set Has at least one dependent (1=yes, 0=no) to 1 if that return claimed any dependent, or 0 if it claimed none.
- Read the Middle Class Tax Refund amount the instrument returns — the exact tier payment for that AGI and dependent status.
- Nudge the AGI across $75,000, $125,000 and $250,000 to see the payment step down a tier, or drop to zero above the ceiling.
Worked example — $60,000 AGI, no dependents
Take a single filer with $60,000 in adjusted gross income and no dependents claimed — enter agi = 60000 and set hasDependent = 0. That AGI sits below the program's $75,000 threshold, so the formula lands in the lowest tier and returns a Middle Class Tax Refund amount of $350.00, the flat base payment for that entire AGI band regardless of how far below $75,000 the income sits.
Flip hasDependent to 1 with the same $60,000 AGI and the payment doubles to $700 — the program paid a flat dependent bonus equal to the base tier, once per return, not per child, so a household with one dependent and a household with four received the identical $700. Push the AGI past $250,000 instead and the same formula returns $0: the ceiling was a hard cutoff, not a phase-out that tapers gradually toward zero.
Questions
Is the California Middle Class Tax Refund still available in 2026?
No — the MCTR was a one-time payment issued between October 2022 and January 2023 to roughly 31.6 million eligible 2020-year returns; no new filing can qualify now. This calculator reconstructs the exact tier a given AGI and dependent status would have received under the closed program's published rules, useful for checking old records rather than for claiming a payment today.
Why does the amount double instead of adding a fixed dependent credit?
The program's own rule set the dependent bonus equal to the base tier for that income band, not a separate flat sum — multiplying by (1 + dependent) reproduces the actual schedule: $350 becomes $700, $250 becomes $500, and $200 becomes $400. It only ever asked whether at least one dependent was claimed, never how many, so a return with one dependent and a return with six received the same bonus.
Why is eligibility based on a 2020 return years after the program ended?
California pulled eligibility from the last full tax year on file when the program launched — the 2020 return — rather than income earned during the payment window itself. That is why this instrument treats adjusted gross income as a static figure: a stand-in for whichever return year actually determined the tier, not a live income you are earning now.
Does the Middle Class Tax Refund count as taxable income?
The IRS clarified in February 2023 that most 2022 state relief payments, including California's MCTR, did not need to be reported as federal taxable income for most recipients, and California never taxed it at the state level. This calculator only reproduces the payment tier; confirm your own filing situation against current IRS guidance before relying on that treatment.
What about married couples filing jointly or head of household?
This instrument reproduces only the single-filer AGI tiers and payment amounts described above. The actual 2022 program used roughly doubled AGI thresholds for joint filers and a separate head-of-household schedule built on the same $350/$250/$200 base amounts — modeling those correctly needs a filing-status field this sheet does not carry, so treat any joint-filer figure from this tool as wrong by design, not approximate.
Why did my actual deposit not match this calculated figure?
Some returns received a debit card instead of a direct deposit, and a portion were offset against a state debt — both change what actually arrived without changing the tier the formula assigns. This tool computes the scheduled entitlement only, the gross amount before any offset, not the net figure a card or bank deposit showed.
References
- IRS Newsroom — federal guidance on 2022 state relief payments
- California Franchise Tax Board — state tax agency that ran the MCTR
Read this first: This instrument shows arithmetic, not advice. Real offers add fees, taxes and terms that vary by lender and place — verify the figures against your actual paperwork before deciding anything.