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Level 2
April 11, 2022
Question

IRS claims Schedule 8812 line 5 incorrectly calculated

  • April 11, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 5 views

I received a letter from the IRS today that mentions my Child Tax Credit was incorrectly calculated in my Schedule 8812 and I owe additional taxes.  When I reviewed my return TurboTax Schedule 8812 Line 5 says 6000.  When I crunch the numbers manually using the Schedule 8812 worksheet off the IRS' website I calculated 4000 (not 6000).

 

I'm confused as to how TurboTax miscalculated line 5 as the only manual input (for my scenario) is number of children. All the other inputs to the calculation are set figures based on simple ABC type scenarios.

 

How / where can I verify within my return how TurboTax came to the amount of 6000?

1. Multiply Schedule 8812, line 4b, by $3,60000
2. Multiply Schedule 8812, line 4c, by $3,00026000
3. Add line 1 and line 2 6000
4. Multiply Schedule 8812, line 4a, by $2,00024000
5. Subtract line 4 from line 3 2000
6. Enter the amount shown below for your filing status 12500
• Married filing jointly — $12,500  
• Qualifying widow(er) — $2,500  
• Head of household — $4,375  
• All other filing statuses — $6,250  
7. Enter the smaller of line 5 or line 6 2000
8. Enter the amount shown below for your filing status 150000
• Married filing jointly or Qualifying widow(er) — $150,000  
• Head of household — $112,500  
• All other filing statuses — $75,000  
9. Subtract line 8 from Schedule 8812, line 3 144000
• If zero or less, enter -0-  
• If more than zero and not a multiple of $1,000, enter the next multiple of $1,000  
10. Multiply line 9 by 5% (0.05) 7200
11. Enter the smaller of line 7 or line 10 2000
12. Subtract line 11 from line 3. Enter on Schedule 8812, line 5 4000

 

    4 replies

    KrisD15
    Level 15
    April 12, 2022

    Line 5 on Schedule 8812 is always "at least" the number of qualifying children times 2,000.

     

    Did you claim two children or three? 

    How many children are on Schedule 8812 line 4c ?

     

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    Level 2
    April 12, 2022

    I claimed 2 - as it noted on line 4c in my TT return.  I posted a screenshot of schedule 8812 from the IRS website as to the calcs.

    Level 10
    April 12, 2022

    The $4,000 or $6,000 amount should be your total child tax credit since it doesn't appear that your income reaches the second phaseout amount of $400,000. If you did not receive advanced child tax credit payments, this would be the total child tax credit that was reported on Form 1040 Line 28. It would also be reported on Line 14i of Schedule 8812. If you received advanced child tax credit payments, your total credit reported on 14i and Line 28 of Form 1040 would be $4,000 or $6,000 minus the amount of advanced child tax credit received. 

     

    It does look like, based on your Line 5 calculations your AGI of $294,000 exceeded $150,000 and TurboTax did not apply the first phase-out to the child tax credit. If this is correct, you should have gotten $2,000 per child age 6-17, not 3,000 as TurboTax appears to have credited you. I have not seen TurboTax miscalculate this form before. 

    Level 2
    April 14, 2022

    Very disappointed with Intuit here.  I called yesterday spent nearly an hour on the phone trying to figure out how / why TurboTax provided the wrong calculation for SCH 8812 they informed me I need to file an accuracy claim.  To which I did - and it was immediately dismissed and closed.  Pathetic.

    Level 2
    May 1, 2022

    Could it be, that line 9 in your example has been calculated incorrectly?

    It looks like you calculated it using this formula:"Line 5 Worksheet".Line3 - "Line 5 Worksheet".Line8

    which would translated into:6000 - 150000 = -144000.

    But you switched(I understand why, at first I did same thing) numbers:150000 - 6000 = 144000

    But. Instructions stated:Subtract line 8 from Schedule 8812, line 3

    Which, it seems to me, implies, that 1st number should come from line 3 of "Schedule 8812" form itself, not "Line 5 Worksheet" line 3. Which would get you different numbers in the formula above. Let's say you have in line 3 of "Schedule 8812" form following value: 100000. Then calculations would look like that: 100000 - 150000 = -50000. So in your example last 4 lines would look like this:

    9 - 0

    10 - 0

    11 - 0

    12 - 6000

     

    If in line 3 of "Schedule 8812" form would contain following value: 160000. Then calculations would look like that: 160000 - 150000 = 10000. So in your example last 4 lines would look like this:

    9 - 10000

    10 - 500

    11 - 500

    12 - 5500

     

    Is it possible, that IRS is wrong here?!?

    Level 15
    May 2, 2022

    @fatherOfWine - What is occuring is that if you file MFJ, for example, and your AGI exceeds $150,000, the CTC credit of $3600 / $3000 is reduced by $500 for every $10,000 of income (or part thereof) that exceeds $150,000, until the CTC is reduced to $2,000 per child. 

     

    Level 2
    July 5, 2022

    My schedule 8812 seems incorrect.  I did the worksheet by hand and got $6,000 instead of $9,000 they put on my form.

    10
    29000
    39000
    46000
    53000
    612500
    73000
    8150000
    90
    100
    113000
    126000
    DoninGA
    Level 15
    Level 15
    July 5, 2022

    @timscotttennis wrote:

    My schedule 8812 seems incorrect.  I did the worksheet by hand and got $6,000 instead of $9,000 they put on my form.

    1 0
    2 9000
    3 9000
    4 6000
    5 3000
    6 12500
    7 3000
    8 150000
    9 0
    10 0
    11 3000
    12 6000

    You made a mistake. 

    For Line 11 you are to enter the Smaller of Line 7 or Line 10.  Line 11 should be 0.  Line 12 is 9000.