Hey, Where’s My Kids Tax Credit?
If you’re wondering where your Child Tax Credit will be paid for August or July, you are not alone. Some families are still waiting to receive monthly checks for up to $ 300 per child, although the good news is that for most people, these delays are temporary. Here’s a look at what’s going on.
Where are your child tax payments?
The checks are part of an increased child tax credit totaling up to $ 3,600 per child, with half of that amount sent in advance on the 15th of the month before the end of the year (for more information on how payments work and how to qualify, check out this Lifehacker post ). The problem is that some families have not yet received payments for the following reasons:
- Common Mail Delays: If you receive your payment by postal check, it is possible that it will be delayed for up to four weeks, even for a standard address. If you are using forwarding mail or have an external address, this can take even longer, up to nine weeks.
- Your August payment was sent by check, even if you expected a direct deposit: An outage affecting payments for 5.4 million households means they will receive their payment in the mail, even if they already received their first check by direct deposit. If this is your case, you may be dealing with typical mail delays. The IRS says the disruption is temporary and that direct deposits are due to resume in September.
- Your July payment was skipped, so this amount is added to your remaining payments: The IRS advises that some families who do not receive the July payment will still receive full prepayment for the year. This means that the total payment will be spread over five months instead of six, increasing each monthly payment. For these families, each payment will be increased to $ 360 per month for each child under 6 and up to $ 300 per month for each child between 6 and 17.
- Either you are not eligible for benefits, or the checks were simply missing: if you have not received payments for July or August yet, use the IRS Eligibility Tool to double check if you are eligible for benefits. According to CNET , if you added a child to your family in 2021, the IRS may not count them because they are using information from your 2020 tax return (you can update it on their Child Tax Credits portal ). Finally, it is also possible that your receipts just disappeared.
How to Verify Your Child Tax Credit Status
To check the status of your payment on the Child Tax Credit Portal , go to the Processed Payments section. If you are waiting for a payment, and the portal says that it is “Awaiting processing”, this means that the check should arrive shortly. If the status indicates that the payment was delivered but you did not receive it, please make sure your address and banking information are correct.
If you see a processed payment on the portal but don’t receive it, you can try something called payment tracking , which is a request to see what happened to your money. The trace can take up to six weeks to process, so you will only want to use this option after a sufficient amount of time has passed, as follows:
- Direct deposit: five days
- Send check to standard address: four weeks
- Check sent to forwarding address: six weeks
- Check sent to foreign address: nine weeks
If none of this works, in the worst case, you will have to claim the full credit later as part of your 2021 tax return. For more information on Child Tax Credits, see the IRS FAQ .