child tax credit for divorced parents

[Joe Carter]

If a divorce couple gets to claim the 1 child ever other year and the wife got the 300 a month for the child tax credit from July to December 2021 ($1500) and she received form 6419.  And the husband gets to claim the child for 2021 on his taxes.  Who gets the remaining 1500 tax credit?

[IRonMaN]

Someone gets a credit and someone may be paying back some payments she received.  You enter the amounts actually received on each parent's return.

[Joe Carter]

So in my scenario the husband will get the 3000 credit and the x-wife may have to pay it back.  This will be fun to see how divorced couples work this issue out.

Thanks

[IRonMaN]

Film it and post it to YouTube.  It will give other tax preparers some good entertainment to break up the stress of tax season. 😁

[Joe Carter]

It would have much more sense to fix the form to factor in the divorced issue.  That way they both get a total of 1500.  It's just the luck of the draw who gets to claim the child in 2021 which is based on the divorce decree.

[IRonMaN]

Or .......... she could have elected out of receiving the payments.  Nobody forced her to collect the cash.

[qbteachmt]

"This will be fun to see how divorced couples work this issue out."

They are supposed to use the online resource to update the status.

"fix the form to factor in the divorced issue"

And that's why the online access is provided = things change over time. Who did they think would enter that info for them?

[gma]

I've done some returns for overpayment of stimulus and child tax payments.  I would have thought something should be paid back from the person who received it and did not have that dependent or child.  Proseries, as far as the stimulus is not making people pay it back.  A no harm no foul like the previous year.

[rcherenson]

Not so for all. I have a client in Japan who received two $150 Child Tax credit payments last summer before the IRS realized he has been living in Japan as an expat for many years and stopped sending them. They should have known as I have been filing him as such for as many years. Reporting the $300 he received, through Proseries, the IRS is clawing it back. 

[IRonMaN]

Depends on income levels whether or not they pay back or if it is more free funny money.

[qbteachmt]

And it depends on the honesty of the people. If a married couple with X kids gets the full amount for whatever they qualify for, and they divorce and file separately in 2021, there is nothing that prevents them from reporting the split of the funds appropriately to what they got, to show that the entitlement(s) were fully met. Those people who argue the "other" spouse won't split that with them, so they want to file for their own amount, are shifting their adult responsibilities to the rest of the taxpayers, as if we can resolve their life issues by throwing more money at them.