Form 8812 Child Tax Credit. I have to enter $0 for EVERY client in the line for advanced payments received even if it doesn't apply at all.

[mm1]

I have done 3 returns at this point for elderly and older clients who have no children to claim. I kept getting an error re Form 8812 which is the child tax credit form. I found that I have to go to that form, enter $0 in the middle of it regarding the advanced child tax credit payments in order to get the error to go away.  Are the rest of you finding out that you must do this? Most of my clients do not have the child tax credit at all so this is just another slow down for my firm that I had to let the preparers know to deal with.

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

Yes, its possible for someone to have received the ACTC even if they dont have any children on the return for 2021, so each and every return will pop up wanting an amount on the 8812, even if its zero.

[mm1]

Well, thanks for the answer. Every year there is something else to deal with using this software. 

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

plopping a couple zeros into a form shouldnt be too much of a time suck.

[Camp1040 · Accepted solution]

And lets give a shout out to intuit for pre populating the year on the  8879 this year so we don't have to type in four digits any more.

[linduca1216]

Yup... same issue.

[Camp1040]

Is it an issue or a useful feature?

[IRonMaN]

Kinda hard to forget about dealing with payments and potential credit with that feature, isn’t it.

[Camp1040]

Especially if the child is no longer on the current tax return.

[mm1]

It is the training of the preparers in my firm for all of the things you must remember to do each year that the program changes or requires. If Intuit would be consistent that would not be such a problem but every year there is something that changes from the prior year where some programmer changed it. Prime example above where every 8879 had to be marked 2020 when in every prior year form the year appeared on the form. Things like this sucks a lot of time as we discovered what changed on what form and have to address it in the preparer meeting on Mondays. We have a board showing all the things to watch out for. It grows legs. Then when Intuit fixes some of them, again you have to address it, remove it from the board. Preparers have a changing checklist they must initial showing they checked this or that. Yes, it sucks a lot of time when you add them all up. 

[IRonMaN]

Everything that changes isn't necessarily Intuit ------------ some guy called the IRS is the cause of some of those changes.