 internal revenue service IRS tax news grandparents and others with eligible dependents shouldn't miss out on 2021 child tax credit oh so my dear old grandma's gonna miss out now uh i see what you're doing with your sneaky language games this time irs everyone knows you get three misses before you're out but now with the sneaky term miss out you imply we only get one miss instead of three only one miss even for my dear old grandmother who you crooked umpires declare miss outed honestly could you imagine baseball games where the batter gets only one miss and they're out one way from the umpire is like miss out yeah that's not how it goes it's three misses and you're out three misses and you're out but honestly if you cut it down to only one the picture stats would go through the roof this is this is ridiculous i'm on to your crafty word games this time irs why don't you just leave my grandma alone and go pass some kind of inflation reduction bill well simultaneously farting into an ever-expanding balloon or something whatever first to joke honestly you know things are bad when the president of the united states is bending the knee to tick tock influencers for support duck sir are you all right sir of course i'm all right why what have you heard i mean the president of the united states interviewed in a serious manner a man who transitioned into a girl a girl minds you like not a grown man who transitioned into a grown woman a grown man who transitioned into a little girl i look out there at all of your wonderful guys and i say to myself what i wouldn't give to be 20 years younger and a woman the word woman feels very strong and confident and powerful and that still intimidates me a little bit so i'm gonna keep calling myself a girl hope that's okay love you apparently primarily doing so to sell a whole lot of makeup well in this base is shut the hell just look out there quiet now hardly man moving right right i even went to school with that man he's not the same been ignoring me all day using the highly prestigious platform of tick tock many of you are wondering what's wrong with my pants well they started running short of a tutorial right before they got to the knee so don't give me any i mean it's ridiculous like many grown women have unsuccessfully tried to transition back into girls or at least turn back the clock a bit i couldn't win a medal either even at bending the thing i was built to do i'm so embarrassed i wish everybody else was dead although grown women can't transition back into girls this grown man he totally can man honestly like this guy could do whatever he wants it's a freak country but the president of the united states interview in this guy like he has any more profound objective other than just getting a platform at the white house so he can use it to sell more makeup is silly want to thank you for having us over to do the other night charl and i thought the struggle up was marvelous but sir we didn't have been at the other night really well the hell was i i know is there's Cheryl i mean this this is our president this isn't this isn't good this is the guy who on our behalf is dealing with terrorist nations around the world guarding the nuclear codes i'll tell i'll tell the combination is one one one two two three three three four four five five five i mean honestly this guy will believe anything at this point that's the stupidest combination i've ever heard in my life that's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage the president has good news everyone good news everyone someone's home is on fire terrorist nations around the world have transitioned their uranium enrichment programs from ambitions for nuclear weapons to clean energy production designed to stop global warming it's great they've turned over a new leaf completely the united states is now happily funding their totally new and wholesome operations sorry sir doing my best who made that man a gunner yeah this isn't good i don't think this is good covid tax tipped 2022-165 october 27 2022 grandparents foster parents or people caring for siblings or other relatives should check their eligibility to receive the 2021 child tax credit quick recap on the child tax credit it is a credit therefore it will typically be lowering the tax liability however part or all of it for 2021 is refundable and that means that even if your tax liability goes below zero you don't owe any more taxes you might still get a benefit from the child tax credit meaning money back basically a refund even though it's not actually a refund in that case because it's more like a benefit program at that point in time typically the people that qualify for the child tax credit or people that have qualifying children which are often children their children but not always because they're going to be dependents on their tax returns so you can get into more details on the age limitations and what's the qualifying child and so on but the idea here would be that normally it's fairly straightforward situation if you're talking about a parent with a qualifying child however it gets a bit more confusing when you have more complex family structures where you have like a grandparent taking care of the child or in a divorce situation who's going to be claiming the child and so on and so forth you would think that if it were a qualifying child they would be somebody's dependent and somebody should be getting you know a benefit for the child tax credit for taking care of the child however you can't have two people that are claiming the same child on the tax return that's usually the problem in a divorce usually you have a situation where both individuals are trying to claim the child and now you've got two people claiming the child but you can also have a situation where neither party or or whoever is taking care of the child doesn't realize that they can claim them as a qualifying child and and a dependent that might be like someone else like another family member is taking care of them or a grandparent type of situation so if no one no one is claiming a qualifying child as a qualifying child then you would think somebody whoever's taking care of them should be able to do that make sure they're you know getting the benefit to help with that process so people who claim at least one child as their dependent there's a link to that here may not realize they could be eligible for benefits from the child tax credit there's a link to that here eligible taxpayers who received advanced child tax credit payments last year should file a 2021 tax return to receive the second half of the credit so the other thing that's confusing about the the credit for 2021 is that they changed it drastically so you the credit was always there before and so people are quite aware of the credit if you have qualifying child you know for the most part but they increased the credit a lot for 2021 and they tried to give part of it out in advances which if everything went well I I guess I can go fairly smoothly but obviously you can imagine situations where things change from one year to the other and it causes kind of some complexity so even if you got the advances though if they're only giving half of it out in the advances so you would still benefit from filing the 2021 tax return even if you've got the advanced child tax credit payments because you should get more of the child tax credit payments when you file the taxes if you didn't get in any advances that's because the iris didn't know about the situation because it wasn't on the prior year tax returns and if you qualify for the child tax credit you would think that you would get the full amount of the child tax credit so eligible taxpayers who did not receive advanced child tax credit payments last year can claim the full credit by filing the 2021 tax return people should review the eligible eligibility rules to make sure they still qualify for the credit the interactive tax assistant there's a link to that here it's kind of a it's kind of a projection tool it's getting better and better it's a good tool I can help people who aren't sure taxpayers who haven't qualified in the past should also check because they may now be able to claim the credit the only way to receive the credit is to file the 2021 tax return so what is the child tax credit expansion the child tax credit expansion increased the amount of money families can receive per child and expanded who can receive the payment the credit increased from $2,000 to $3,600 per child for children under the age of six from 2,000 to 3,000 for children over the age of six and raised the age limit from 16 to 17 years old so those are some of the age restrictions which are one of the big kind of factors of course when determining whether they are a qualifying child the child tax credit expansion applies to tax year 2021 only so they made this giant you know kind of adjustment because of you know the situation for 2021 they were able to do that but they only did it for that year because it's supposed to be temporary and whatnot so who qualifies for the child tax credit taxpayers can claim the credit for each qualifying child who has a social security number that is valid for employee employment there's a link to that here in the united states and issued the social security administration before the due date of their tax return this includes the filing extension if the taxpayer requested the extension by the tax returns original due date to be a qualifying child the 2021 tax year the child must fit certain criteria so there's links to that criteria here what are the eligibility factors individuals qualifying for the full amount of the 2021 child tax credit for qualifying children if they meet all eligibility factors there's a link to that here and their annual income is not more than so these are the phase out limitations 150,000 if they're married and filing a joint return or if they're filing as a qualifying widow or widow were 112,500 if they're filing as head of household 75,000 if they're single filer or are married and filing separate return parents and guardians with higher incomes may be eligible to claim a partial credit irs free file available until november 17th to help more people receive credits so note we're past the extension deadline so so but you still if you haven't filed your 2021 tax return you may still want to file it oftentimes people run into restrictions because they can't get access to to the resources to file past the due date because because the free file software for example usually isn't there past the extension date but somehow the iris has twisted these these software providers arms even harder their arms about to fall off i think it's like it's like an unnatural position twisted around their back right now but they're going to offer the software up through november 17th so if you know anyone that hasn't filed yet they probably want to take advantage of the software opportunity or else you got to pay for the software so the irs free file program there's a link to that here offers eligible taxpayers brand name tax preparation software to use at no cost it's free for most individual filers who earn seventy three thousand dollars or less in 2021 to help more people claim a variety of tax credits and benefits free file will remain open for an extra month this year until november 17th 2022 they did it for my birthday that's like right where my birthday is so i've requested it as as a gift to everyone here just kidding they don't care about me at all but here we go taxpayers who earned the seventy three thousand dollars uh in 2021 and are comfortable preparing their own taxes can use free file fillable forms there's a link to that here this electronic version of paper irs tax forms is also used to file tax returns online more information below at the link there's 2021 child tax credit and advanced child tax credit payments frequently asked questions there's a link to that there's a link to the free file fillable forms there's links to the qualifications for the child tax there's stuff all over this place and there'll be a link to this in the description