Here's something we discovered after we filed clients' 2020 taxes and the letters from IRS started pouring in. Often, IRS records of stimulus money paid did not match taxpayer records. Worse, these letters from IRS did not clearly explain the problem. Clients were confused by the letters, and the half-explanations in them didn't give our office enough information to identify the source of the problem. Moreover, because of Covid-related backlog, the ability for our office to communicate with IRS was delayed. Delayed a lot. In some cases, months.  There are still inquiries we have made on clients' behalf that still have received no response.

For 2021, in addition to the third stimulus payment, IRS has been sending out other pre-payments in the form of the Advance Child Tax Credit. We are fully expecting similar problems and confusion relating to reconciling the amounts of these payments. We must report payment amounts on your Form 1040, and if the amount we report isn't correct, you will receive a letter, which will take months to solve.

The best proactive thing we can do to try to prevent this unnecessary confusion is to know how much IRS believes it has paid you already. There are two separate documents addressing these specific pre-payments:

• Either Letter 6475 or Notice 1444-C. Both these documents will show the amount of third stimulus (also known as EIP-3) that IRS believes it paid you. You should have received Notice 1444-C some time during 2021, and IRS will mail Notice 6475 in January of 2022. If you can't locate either document, you will have to go to the IRS website to obtain the information. If you haven't created a user account with IRS, you will need to do so. Click here to go to the appropriate IRS page. Look for the blue button "Sign in to your Online Account."
• Letter 6419, showing the amount of Advance Child Tax Credit IRS believes it has paid you. IRS is supposed to mail these letters in January 2022. To learn more about this process, the credit itself, or adjust how much you are paid in advance, you can go to this IRS page.

Again, if you received any of these payments in 2021, we must have the corresponding document(s) in order to file your taxes. This is a requirement that benefits you and our office staff by saving time, reducing stress, and cutting down on delays.