Hey all you Tax Accountant Professionals (or Level-Uppers, or whatever you may be), if you could indulge me for just a moment and put yer wrenches down and look away from your motorcycles, I would like to tell you the answer that none of you have been able to figure out. I apparently discovered this whilst wandering around lost in the internet looking for ballet lessons over the course of the last 30 minutes of so. 

Log into your own IRS website and look at your records. The path is "Account Home > Tax Records". Right there, you will find the following heading and associated information (read it carefully, I have provided the bold highlighting for you):

2020 Economic Impact Payment Information

Use these amounts to calculate any Recovery Rebate Credit on your Tax Year 2020 return.

If you file as Married Filing Jointly, each spouse should see their own amount within their own account. All amounts must be considered if filing jointly in 2020.

<END IRS WEBSITE INFO>

There is the answer for all you motorheads! When the return is a MFJ, each of the "joints" needs to login to their own IRS account and to determine the amount paid. Equally, each of the "joints", if needed, should verify the amount was actually deposited into their account (or accounts). I think if you pull the string far enough, you will find the total amount paid to the "joints" is equally divided and reported between the two accounts and is therefore accurate (for MFJ). This is the exact case for me and my "joint". Also, this may be why there appears to be a strange and consistent anomaly in the complaints (lots of them on the internet about this issue whether it was from Lacerte, TurboTax, TaxSlayer, or any other program), that the IRS was "taking back" exactly 1/2 of the credit.

So, get back to your motorhead'n and back to guzzl'n whatever it is y'all guzzle, cuz, PROBLEM SOLVED - GO TELL YOUR CLIENTS!

You people are a hoot!