How to get your Economic Impact Payment or Advance Child Tax Credit Payment amounts

Tax time is here for filing your 2021 Form 1040 US. Federal Income Tax Return. Whether you are using a tax professional to prepare and file your return or you’re preparing it yourself, there are a couple steps you can take to reduce potential errors or delays in processing your return. Two new important items for the 2021 returns are reporting the correct amount of your 2021 Economic Impact Payment and any Advance Child Tax Credit Payments that you received during 2021.

Reporting the correct amount on your return will make it faster for the IRS to process your return and send you a refund. As a reminder, it is highly recommended that you e-file your tax return and use a direct deposit for any refunds. Don’t worry, the IRS already knows your bank account information so you don’t have to worry about giving them information they don’t already have.

Economic Impact Payment

The IRS sent a letter to all taxpayers who received the Economic Impact Payment last year. The letter has “Notice Number: 1444-C” in the top right hand side of the page. These letters came from the White House and started being sent in April, 2021. The letter was addressed to each taxpayer and couples who filed married filing joint received one letter per joint tax return. If you lost this letter, you can get the amount from the IRS website. (see instructions below)

Advance Child Tax Credit Payments

Some taxpayers were eligible to receive the Advance Child Tax Credit Payments in 2021. These new payments for parents come from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. You can review more about these payments on the IRS website devoted to the Advance Child Tax Credits. There are plenty of other posts to learn more about these payments, who qualified for them, and how they were calculated. Now that the year is over, the most important thing is to know if you received any of these payments, and, if so, how much you received.

Unlike the Economic Impact Payments, the IRS sent the amounts that were paid to each taxpayer separately. So if a married couple filed a tax return as married filing jointly, then each spouse will receive a separate letter. You will need to know the amount sent to both spouses for a joint tax return. The IRS has a sample letter on their website if you want to see what it looks like.

However, there might be a problem with the letter that the IRS sent to you. There are reports on #TaxTwitter that the amounts reported on the letter are not correct. Since this is apparently a known issue, it is highly advised to confirm the amounts by pulling your federal transcript from the IRS website taxpayer account.

Maybe we shouldn't be telling our clients to save IRS Letter 6419… pic.twitter.com/e3dGMU02wN

— Logan Graf (@LoganGrafTax) January 20, 2022

How to find out the amounts needed for your tax return?

Log into your account on the IRS website. If you don’t have an account setup already, you can create a new ID.me account to access your return information. If you have an older account that uses a username to log in, it’s probably a good idea to setup the account right now since they will retire the old accounts this summer.

Setup your new account with the IRS

First go to the IRS website at https://www.irs.gov/ where you’ll find a number of links to various pieces of information. Most of the items you need will be consolidated in your account but you can get directly to your Economic Impact Payment Status for 2021 payments and view your Child Tax Credit Payment information. However, for this post, let’s take a look at Your Account, so select the option “Sign In to Your Account.”

The page that comes up has a blue button in the center column that says “Sign in to your Online Account” and this is the link you want to select.

The Sign In page gives you some options to continue. If you don’t have an ID.me account, go ahead and select “Create a new account.” This will lead you to the ID.me website where you will create a unique account using facial recognition to prove that it is actually you. You’ll want to have a computer and a mobile phone capable of taking pictures and receiving text messages. I recommend taking a look at this article from ID.me before you start to make the process go easier.

Once you have your account setup, you’re ready to login using your new ID.me account. You’ll need to have your verified phone available to accept a text message or phone call with a code to enter to proceed. You’ll be logged in and then taken to your personal account on the IRS website.

Using your IRS Account

The Home Page for your account gives you several pieces of information. On the left side is a Status section that (on my login) is showing that my 2021 return isn’t processed (because I haven’t filed it). It will also show any amount (if any) that is currently owed to the IRS. What you’re going to be looking for is on the right under the “Records” section.

If you’re looking for your Advance Child Tax Credit information, select that link. For the rest of the information, select “View Tax Records.”

Tax Records

The main page will show a summary of your most recently filed and processed tax return. For me it’s showing a summary of my 2020 tax return.

Scroll down a little ways and you’ll find links to the amounts that were paid to you for the Advance Child Tax Credit. Below this is a section for the Economic Impact Payment. If you expand the section for 2021, you’ll see the amount that YOU received for economic impact payments. This amount will not include the amount your spouse received (even if you received the combined amount in one payment). So, both spouses should go through this process.

Getting Your Tax Transcript

Once you reviewed these amounts, scroll back to the top of the page and select “Get Transcript” This takes you to a new page and starts off by asking for the reason you are requesting the transcript. To be honest, I don’t know why they ask this, but I think it is so they can highlight the information you’re look for on the following page. For your 2021 tax return, select 2021 under the Account Transcript section. This will bring up a pdf file that shows different transactions on your account.

You should see a Tax Relief Credit and Refund Issued for the Economic Impact Payment. If you’re married and filed jointly, the amount should be the total that both spouses received. Here’s what I see under my own account:

Let’s look at this in detail to help you understand this information.

The first line is creating a balance that the IRS owes me for the Economic Impact Payment. The second line is the amount that the IRS paid to me for the Economic Impact Payment. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the transcript shows $2,800 but the amount up above from the first page only shows $1,400. This is because the first page only show my own amount but the transcript shows the amount for my joint tax return.

The last two lines are a little confusing. From what I can tell, the code 290 “Additional tax assessed” isn’t an important line item and might be related to a number of things. The important thing is that it has a zero in the amount. A Google search indicates it is an internal code that, in this case, is related to the Stimulus payment.

The last line shows code 971 Notice Issued. From a quick Google search, it appears this is related to the IRS letter sent to me about the stimulus payment I received. This is the Notice Number: 1444-C that I mentioned at the start of this post.

So, the last two lines are not a cause for concern and I point them out because I know a lot of people will get upset to see something on their transcript mentioning an additional tax assessed and a tax notice being issued. If the IRS had a brain, they would have created better descriptions for these items so taxpayers could see exactly what it is for. But alas, they don’t at this moment.

Wage & Income Transcript

While we’re here, let’s take a look at the Wage & Income Transcript. This is incredibly important and will definitely help you prepare your tax return. You know all those tax documents that you receive (usually in January). Most of them mention that you are receiving the Taxpayer Copy. What you don’t normally see is that the IRS also receives a copy of this form. The IRS copy gets processed and then will be posted to your account. You can see this information on this transcript. Now, most of the documents aren’t automatically posted and will take a little time to work through the maze at the IRS before they show up on your transcript. I believe most of the documents normally show up in late May or early June. The current situation at the IRS means it might be even later, but it’s a good resource once it is posted.

This was written on January 20, 2022. The IRS could change the layout of the pages on their site, but even if they do, you should be able to find your transcript in a similar manner. I would suggest saving the transcripts the I mention above to a pdf or screen shot and giving them to your tax preparer when you give them your 2021 tax information.