Back in mid-December, we sent an alert encouraging you to keep two letters from the IRS since they will be important when we start preparing your 2021 tax returns. It turns out that one of those, Letter 6419 – Advance Child Tax Credit Payments, which should include the amount of payments you received, may contain outdated or inaccurate information. This is particularly true if you have recently moved, if your checks or direct deposit payments were undeliverable, or if you changed bank accounts. Additionally, there seem to be a substantial number of letters that were sent just prior to the last payment, so those letters will be a month off on their totals.
What Should You Do?
First, double check that the total of the deposits in the letter you received matches the amount that was deposited into your bank account. If the totals match, you are fine.
If the amounts do not match, we recommend that you visit the recently revamped website for the Child Tax Credits where you can get up-to-date information on the amount to put on your tax return. (Though we do recommend you also check this amount to what you actually received as well.)
Accessing Your Online Account
We have been told that logging into the Child Tax Credit webpage can be challenging. In essence, you must create an ID.me account to access your information. To verify your identity with ID.me, you must upload a photo of your driver’s license, state ID or passport. Here’s where it gets a bit weird, but you will also need to take a selfie using a smartphone or computer webcam and upload that as well. Once your identity is verified by the IRS and ID.me, you can securely access IRS online services.
To learn more, you can read this article from Accounting Today. And if you have any questions, let us know and we will do our best to help.