Advanced payments for the Child Tax Credit began in July and have been going out every month since. However, some taxpayers may have not received their payment because it was improperly deposited, there was an issue with the mail or they didn’t sign up before the deadline.
Taxpayers will have to reconcile the payments they received with the total credit they are eligible for in the 2021 tax year, so taxpayers need to act soon if a payment registers as being sent but was never received.
Resolving this issue could take weeks so the Taxpayer Advocate Service is advising people to start the process as soon as possible. The first step is to double-check the status of the payment on the Child Tax Credit Update Portal to ensure the payment was actually sent out and whether it was sent via direct deposit or a paper check.
With people juggling so many responsibilities on a day-to-day basis, the IRS’ Taxpayer Advocate Service said it’s possible the payment was deposited but it got missed or was deposited in a different account than a taxpayer thought it would be. So taxpayers should check all of their bank accounts for the deposit, as well as, ask anyone who lives in the home who would have access to a paper check to make sure they didn’t cash it and forget to mention it.
If a taxpayer is certain a payment is missing, they need to request a payment trace on it, the Taxpayer Advocate Service said. This can only be requested if it’s been five days since the deposit date and the bank says it hasn’t received the payment, four weeks since the payment was mailed, six weeks since the payment was mailed to a forwarding address or nine weeks since the payment was mailed to an international address.
A payment trace can be requested by phone at 800-919-9835 or by mailing or faxing Form 3911 to the IRS. The Taxpayer Advocate Service advises against using Form 3911 if a phone request has already been made.
For some people, payments aren’t “missing,” they were never issued in the first place. While many taxpayers didn’t have to do anything to start receiving the monthly payments, those who don’t normally have to file taxes, including low-income families, had to sign up using the non-filer tool.
The deadline to sign up was November 15, so anyone who is eligible for the expanded Child Tax Credit but didn’t register in time will have to wait until they file their taxes in 2022. Eligible families will still receive their full credit, it will just be in a lump sum issued as part of their tax refund instead of separate payments.
