07/15/2021
Advance Child Tax Credit (feel free to share)
I have been getting a lot of questions about this. Payments are being paid on the 15th until December. Keep in mind, this is an advance on the child tax credit so receiving the payments now will likely reduce your refund come tax season. The credit has increased from $2,000/ child to $3,000 (ages 6-17) and $3,600 (ages 0-5) for incomes under $150,000 (married) or $112,500 (single). If your income is over the threshold, you will still receive $2k/kid (phases out at $200k single or $400k married). The advance payments are those amounts divided by 12 months. So at most you are only receiving half of the credit and will receive the remainder at tax season.
Parents of 17 year olds will receive the credit for 2021 🎉.
For parents who don't claim their children every year, keep in mind you might receive the advance and need to pay it back depending on if it's "your year".
For the sanity of your tax preparer, please keep track of how much you receive in 2021. If we have the wrong amounts it will likely delay your refund.
The IRS has stated both spouses need to unenroll.
You can still "unenroll" for the rest of the year.
How to Unenroll
To unenroll, go to the IRS.gov, select "get details about child tax credit", select "manage payments", select "manage advance payments".
It took me less than ten minutes to unenroll. I personally found it much easier to create an IRS account than use the ID.me. So select "Sign in with an existing IRS account". From there you create an account. You need to input some personal info including like the last 8 digits of a credit card or loan to verify identity. Once you have created the account, you can login and unenroll.
