I got the first stimulus in April, based on my 2018 tax filing of married, filing jointly, and less than $150K AGI.
I filed my 2019 taxes the same way (still coming beneath the $150K cutoff for married couples), but somehow the IRS seemed to find me ineligible.
I’m filing this year through TurboTax, and it doesn’t show me a path to claiming the credit which I’ve read should be available for people who missed the December payment. I’m also anxious to know if whatever knocked me down in December will affect my eligibility for the new round of payments just authorized.
Any tax law professionals who can give me some general knowledge about this? TIA.
It may be important that I was widowed last February, and tax year 2020 will be my last year filing jointly as married.
Your bank account hasn’t changed or anything like that with removing your late wife from it?
No. We had maintained separate accounts for several years so she could feel like she had some money of her own, but tax returns had been directly deposited into my account, which didn’t have her name on it.
I assume you mean January 2021. The bill was passed in December, but I don’t think anyone got the money until January. Some people did have it pending by New year’s day, but I haven’t heard anyone say that they got it in December.
I can’t say why, but it apparently does happen. We have to ask most of our clients about the stimulus payments since only a fraction make enough money to not qualify for a credit for missed payments, and we often get people who don’t report the January 2021 payment at first because it happened in 2021, but there has been at least one case where they claimed they didn’t receive the January payment despite receiving the April/May one. As to whether the death had anything to with it, I don’t think that was the case in any of the one I remember.
I don’t know the arcane processes by which the IRS said some people who eligible for the advance credit and which weren’t. I don’t think anyone outside the IRS does. It has not handled the pandemic particularly well; for example, it sent out notices of taxes due while still processing the payments that were sent in on time yet. It’s apparently very difficult to reprogram their IT systems due to changes that were never expected to happen. Our own receptionist had an issue with their 2019 return where they had to file it on paper, and when they inquired as to their advance stimulus payment before that return could be processed, the system for some reason created a zero return in the IRS system, which significantly delayed processing of the real return once they got to it, to the point where they had to call the IRS Tax advocate and get a human to look at the issue.
On another point with respect to the dead spouse, I’ve seen people (with surviving spouses) that have died not getting the stimulus payments despite them being eligible to claim a credit for them on their last 1040. I’ve also seen the IRS send out a stimulus payment to someone who died in 2019, and it was even addressed to the person as deceased (their surviving spouse was still filing their 2020 return with us).
I’m doing volunteer tax preparation through VITA, the IRS program for seniors and lower-income people. The software we use is TaxSlayer. TaxSlayer will ask us if the client received the first and/or second stimulus payments. We have to rely on what the client tells us; if he/she says that no payment was received or only the first was received, we enter that data. Then a tax credit appears on the return, and the client will receive the money as part of his/her refund.
I have had two clients, both women, who lost their husbands last year. In both cases, they received $2400 in the first payment, but just $600 in the second, because their spouses had died before the second payment was issued. But TaxSlayer says that another 600 bucks is due to the taxpayer, so presumably and hopefully they will both get that money.
I use TurboTax (desktop version) for my personal tax returns. I was pretty sure that it asked if I had received the stimulus payments. And Google tells me that TurboTax should be asking all clients the same question. If your version of TurboTax isn’t asking you that question, you may want to contact their support group.
Turbotax asked me if I received my payment, but I answered yes, so that’s as far as it went.
Same here. I did my taxes earlier today and right at the Federal Review stage, TurboTax asked if I received the first-round payment of $1,200 and the second-round payment of $600. I answered yes, but it sounds like the OP didn’t get one of those and in that case, they should answer no and presumably TurboTax will adjust for that.
Thanks, everyone. I’ll revisit my return and back up through it to try to find the question.
In the days since I originally posted, I came across another person who inexplicably did not get the January stimulus, and asking around the office I verified that other preparers had also noticed it a few times on occasion. I also believe I found out why went I went to go look for when the original stimulus payments were sent out. It appears as though the bill providing the second stimulus provided that the IRS could only send them out until January 15. If they hadn’t sent them out by them, they were supposed to just not send them out. I believe the reason for this is so that none of them got crossed in the mail with people’s tax returns, so people wouldn’t be legitimately claiming a credit for a payment not received when they were just about to receive it. That’s my take on the January 15 deadline at least.
Okay, turns out that the question about which stimulus payments I did and didn’t get is at the very end of the return. Just added $1200 to my refund.