Will there be a query set up for clients eligible for the Advanced Child Tax Credit

We received a call from one of our clients yesterday wondering about the advance payment.  He was planning on sticking the money into a savings account and if he comes up short next year he will know where to find the money to cover the shortage.  I could go through my client list and easily mark which clients will be affected.  But overall, those that really need the money, have enough cushion the way it is, and those that don't have a cushion aren't going to create a financial hardship if they get the money early.  Oh well, I guess I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over this one.

I think many tax professionals (and taxpayers) don't realize that withholding is supposed to change too.  So if they have their W-4 properly filled out to 'break even' at tax time, hypothetically they will still 'break even' at tax time because the W-2 withholding is supposed to compensate for the Advance credit.

Of course that doesn't fit many taxpayers who pay Estimated Tax and other situations.  And that is assuming the IRS actually does come out with new withholding tables/formulas and the employers/payroll companies actually change it.

So besides being a political ploy, I think the Advance credit will primarily help those low-income people that have minimal withholding but have large refunds due to the Child Tax Credit and EIC.  They will be able to get part of it in Advance, rather than as a huge lump-sum.

There really needs to be a query!  It would make this much easier than going through the clients one by one determining who has qualifying children.  Now that the IRS has a website allowing clients to opt out of the payments, I would think ProSeries would have a query so we can contact the clients and send them to the IRS site if appropriate.